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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619166">All For Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ichaelis/pseuds/ichaelis'>ichaelis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Knight So True [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:54:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>43,614</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619166</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ichaelis/pseuds/ichaelis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aegon Targaryen once said that he never wanted a wife, but that was before the tourney of Raventree Hall, in the beginning of his nineteenth year, and a chance encounter with a free-spirited, black-haired beauty. </p><p>Meanwhile, Ser Duncan the Tall is offered the highest honour in the Seven Kingdoms: a white cloak of the Kingsguard. But when a ghost appears from his past, the former hedge knight realizes that some vows are harder to keep than others.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aegon V Targaryen &amp; Duncan "Dunk" the Tall, Aegon V Targaryen/Betha Blackwood, Duncan "Dunk" the Tall/Rohanne Webber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Knight So True [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After months of endless heat that left the formerly lush fields of the Reach brittle, brown stalks, and its lakes and riverbeds as dry as old parchment, the thunderstorms came with a vengeance. Dunk stood beside the open window in the maester’s tower, looking out over Coldmoat Castle. The moat that surrounded the castle had been near empty the last time Dunk had been here, only a week or so before. Now, there was water enough that it was churning in the cold, harsh wind, fiercely spilling onto the banks like waves crashing into shore. The sky was black and grey, and every so often, the clouds flared blue, purple and white as forked lighting surged between them, closely followed by peals of thunder so loud they made the bottles, earthen vessels, and instruments littering the maester’s table tremble. In the beams overhead, ravens shrieked, flapping their wings in terror, and loosing several black feathers that fell like rain on the Hedge Knight’s sandy blonde head.</p><p>Dunk halfheartedly brushed them off, too miserable and sore to care much if there were black feathers on his shoulders or bird faeces on his head. He was a hedge knight, not a lord or merchant or perfumed prince. Besides his plate, he only owned one pair of woolen breeches, one riding tunic, permanently stained with old sweat, and his Dornish tunic, painted with his personal sigil – an elm tree on a sunset field with a falling star streaking above – for formal occasions. And even that was nothing special. Nor was he. One inch shy of seven feet he was, with a broad chest and shoulders, limbs thick like tree trunks, and a tapered torso of pure muscle. There wasn’t a frame in Westeros that wasn’t branded by his forehead.</p><p>On the other side of the castle, the high windows radiated with low, orange firelight. Lighthearted music floated over the low thrumming of the rain with bawdy laughter and clinking silverware. Dunk recognized bits of “My Featherbed”, “My Lady Wife”, “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” and “The Maids that Bloom in Spring”. The wedding feast of old Ser Eustace Osgrey and Lady Rohanne Webber had ended several nights past, but many of the couple’s guests remained, stalled by the heavy storms. This was no weather to travel in, thought Dunk. Especially not in the state that he was in. Yet, that was exactly what he meant to do.</p><p>“There is no place for me here,” he muttered, leaning on the window frame. The stone was cool to touch, and Dunk’s head was still throbbing from the beating he’d taken from Longinch. His right cheek still stung too, from where he’d sliced his skin open to pay the Red Widow blood for blood. He’d scar, the maester said. But he minded it not; a man should have scars. It proved he'd lived through what might've slain others.</p><p>“Ser?” Egg, his squire, had seated himself on the corner of the maester’s table behind him, and fingered some of the man’s papers, skimming their contents curiously with his large, purple eyes. Forks of white lightning flared outside, and Egg’s shaven head shone like moonstone in the flashing light.</p><p>“Stop that,” Dunk said with a frown. “It’s rude to nose through people’s things.”</p><p>“I’m looking for treason,” Egg replied, his legs swinging back and forth lackadaisically. A lie to be sure. The Webbers were loyalists; Lady Webber’s father, Lord Wyman, fought for Daeron II Targaryen, not the bastard, Daemon Blackfyre. Her first husband, who had only been twelve when he’d passed, had too. Egg was only snooping.</p><p>“Keep looking and I’ll clout you on the ear so hard the thunder will be naught but whispers,” Dunk threatened. He probably wouldn’t, but the boy need not know that. He only struck him when he’d no other choice. Hitting a prince was a crime no matter the cause; he’d learned that the hard way in Ashford Meadow. And Egg’s real name was Aegon Targaryen, fourth son of Prince Maekar, the blood of the Dragon Lords of Old Valyria. Besides, Dunk never felt right hitting people, especially not children. Yet, Egg was Dunk’s squire, and a knight was lord over his squire, be he prince or pauper. Besides, boys needed some punishment to curb their base impulses, or in the very least the threat of punishment. Ser Arlan had taught him that.</p><p>Egg let the maester’s papers be. If he knew that the Hedge Knight’s threats were empty, he never said so. “Aren’t we having supper, ser?” The princeling’s stomach burbled ravenously. Dunk’s own rumbled in response. When had they last supped so well? Or rather, when had <em>he</em>? Egg had sat in with Ser Eustace for the feast. Surely the boy had had his fill of barley bread, buttered turnips with capers, spiced suckling pig, roasted to a crisp over the fire, kidney pie, and fresh honey cakes topped with blackberries and nuts – the kinds of meals that were common for him when he’d still been “Prince Aegon Targaryen of Summerhall” instead of “Egg”, Ser Duncan’s insolent squire.</p><p>But Dunk could count on one hand how many times he’d tasted food so fine. His normal fare was hard salt beef he had to immerse in water for hours, lest he shatter his teeth, or whatever fish he might catch from the common streams, full of tiny bones. It would be some time before he’d the chance to eat well once they were back on the road. Still…He wasn’t sure that he was brave enough to face them, old Ser Eustace with his trembling white mustache or his new lady wife.</p><p>“No. See if the kitchen staff has something," he replied. "Something that will keep. Salt beef. Salt pork. Maybe mead if possible. And a few skins of water. Tell them I sent you and I’m sure they will be liberal.” Now that the Osgreys and Webbers had made peace, the castle staff should treat Dunk with far more courtesy than they had when they were enemies. Should…Though, whether they <em>would</em> remained to be seen.</p><p>Egg left to tend to his task. Dunk, meanwhile, threw on Ser Eustace’s woolen cloak over his simple tunic. It was old, thin and musty-smelling, the border of chequered gold and green dull and fraying.  Ser Eustace had forced it on him, though, in thanks for his loyal service, and Dunk hadn’t the heart to refuse. The very least, the cloak would keep off some of the rain; though likely not for long. And he could not look on it without feeling sad. Still, he pinned it to his shoulder with a brooch wrought in silver. It was Lady Webber’s spider, with crushed garnets scattered across its abdomen for its red spots and fine silver wires for its webs. It likely cost more than everything he owned. Dunk promised himself that he’d never sell it, no matter what happened to his meager coin. He’d sooner resort to begging.</p><p>Every step he took from the maester’s tower was agony, and he pressed his teeth together behind his lips to stop himself screaming. His left leg still hurt like mad from when he’d lost his seat in the Chequy Water, having tangled himself in his stirrups. Thunder hadn’t meant to harm him. He was a faithful beast but a beast nonetheless. His instincts had made him startle, and Dunk had simply been misfortunate. His leg wasn’t broken, only sprained, for which he thanked the Seven. The pain would be immeasurable, but he could still ride. That was well enough for him. A knight who could not ride wasn’t a knight. And if he wasn’t a knight, he was nothing.</p><p>Septon Sefton, the fat septon and Lady Webber’s brother by law, was waiting when Dunk reached the bailey, hobbling on his short crutch like a cripple. His moon face was flushed pink and even standing still he swayed. Dunk liked the man, though he was fond of prattle and excessively fond of wine. He’d sat with him near every morning, sometimes to pray, sometimes (most times) simply to blather on while Dunk fluttered between sleep and wakefulness.</p><p>When he learned of Dunk’s plans to leave, the septon’s skin turned white as clotted milk. “This is folly, ser!” he said. But Dunk simply limped past him, making for the stables where Thunder was being kept. Sefton followed, imploring him not to leave. The septon was old, overweight and half Dunk’s size, and had to sprint to keep up.</p><p>But Dunk couldn’t stay. Not now. Not when he knew that <em>they</em> were married, that each night Ser Eustace – Ser Eustace the traitor - who Dunk had served, for whom Dunk had sacrificed his honour, his <em>life</em>, would follow the castle's narrow, winding halls to Lady Rohanne’s bedroom, where she would be combing out that beautiful braid of long red hair with a fine, horsehair brush in front of a mirror ornamented with black and red spiders and silver webs. Where he would climb with her into bed, naked, and fondle her breasts while he kissed her lips and neck, tickling her pretty face with his long mustache. Where he’d slip his old, withered cock inside her, making love to her over and over, while Dunk the lunk slept by himself in the maester’s tower with only the ravens and their runny shit on his sheets for company.</p><p>No…There was nothing Septon Sefton could say to change his mind.</p><p>Sefton waited outside while Dunk entered the stables, whimpering beneath his shallow breaths. He wrung his meaty hands together worriedly and muttered prayers on the Hedge Knight’s behalf. But the large, wooden doors swung shut with a creak behind him, and Dunk could no longer make out what he said.</p><p>It was near pitch black in the stables, thanks to the rain. There were ironworks sconces on the vertical beams between every fourth stall, burning languidly, and it only took a moment for his eyesight to shift. The stables were long, with more than twenty spacious stalls running the length of each wall. And nearly every one had in it a horse or pony. They were beautiful creatures: chargers and coursers and destriers, garrons and grey palfreys, and even a couple sand steeds with black coats smooth as silk. Duncan knew that Thunder was nearer the back where it was darker and quieter and more restful for old beasts like him.</p><p>“Ser Duncan,” Lady Rohanne said from where she stood beside the bales of hay, like she had not expected to find him there. But he knew she’d been waiting. There was no other reason for her to be here. Besides, she was wearing an elegant, emerald green dress with belled sleeves made of shimmering silk, trimmed with cloth-of-gold and cinched round her tiny waist with a braided cord. It was not the kind of thing a lady wore out riding in the rain.</p><p>She played with her red braid, twisting it through her fingers. “It’s good to see you on your feet.”</p><p><em>Is it? </em>he wondered. And how could she have known what he’d looked like on his back? She had not come to him, not once while he was recovering. The maester said that Egg sat beside him the entire time, leaving only when he was forced out to be present for the wedding feast. Of course; the boy was fiercely loyal and as close to a baby brother as Dunk would ever know.</p><p>But she had never visited. Never sat beside his bed. Never changed the towel covering his brow. Never held his hand while he lay there, clinging to his life - or what little of it there was.</p><p>“M’lady,” the Hedge Knight replied with a bow of his large head. He still slurred the words, even though Egg had reminded him that only lowborn servants and peasants said it like that. “A knight should speak properly,” the boy had said a hundred times. But Dunk had a tongue as thick and slow as a snail, and stumbled every time.  “What brings you here? It’s a bit wet for riding,” he noted, playing the fool.</p><p>“I might say the same to you.”</p><p>“Egg told you?” Elsewise how could she had known of his plans to leave? The Dragon Prince was smarter than he should be. Likely he suspected that there was reason they were fleeing like thieves in the night, reasons that concerned the Red Widow. But what could he know of Dunk’s feelings? He was only ten, and hated the thought of wedding – he’d said so himself. <em>Give it time</em>, Dunk had thought. <em>The time will come when nothing will matter more than to hold someone close forever.</em></p><p>“Be glad he did, or I would have sent men out after you and dragged you back. It was cruel of you to try and steal away without a farewell.”</p><p>Before he could think better of it, he shot her such a fearsome glare that she shrunk back into the long shadows. “Cruel of <em>me</em>?” Was it not cruel of her to speak to him so sweetly, her words laced with hidden meaning and eyes flaring with feminine mischief? Was it not cruel of her to touch his lips when her strike had made them swell, her long, soft fingers full of sorrow? Was it not cruel of her to suggest that there might possibly be something between them – he the baseborn knight from King’s Landing and she a noble lady – only to marry someone else without even seeing him while he lay suffering?</p><p>Rohanne took a small step towards him. She was barely five feet, near two shorter than he, slender <em>and pretty. All covered in freckles I bet. </em>But she’d stood before him before like it was she that was an inch shy of seven feet, fierce and proud.  To compensate for being small and feminine, he recalled her saying. She’d had to be cruel and frightening or the men would believe her weak.</p><p>But now she looked small and frightened and every bit her five and twenty years, younger even. Her fingers swept over the checkered trim of his cloak, like she was scared to touch him. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry that I never came to see you. It was horrible of me not to, I know that. But… I’m four times a widow. And when Egg pulled you from the stream… They said that you had surely drowned. Even when you finally vomited half the bloody river on the bank, Maester Cerrick was certain you’d not survive. And I’ve sat vigil beside too many men. Besides, I could not stomach to see what my stubbornness had wrought.”</p><p>It was a fine enough excuse, he supposed. Better than to say that he’d meant nothing to her, or that the thought had not crossed her mind. But words were wind, and nothing she could say would change the fact that she was married now, and his service to Ser Eustace finished. “I’m here for my horse. Then I will be off.” <em>And we will never see each other again…</em></p><p>“There’s a place for you here,” she insisted a hand rising to her throat, “once you have recovered. Captain of my guards or… or something else, perhaps? If that is not enough. I can find something suitable. And Egg can join my other squires. No one will ever know who he is.”</p><p><em>And as your lover, perhaps?</em> he wondered bitterly.<em> I shall become like Longinch, only I will also warm your bed when you are not with your husband, or when he is too frail to please you.</em></p><p>He nearly choked on the words. “Thank you, but no.”</p><p>“Please reconsider. These’re perilous times, even for dragons. And elm trees besides… no matter their size, they’re like to be burned.” She fell into step beside him, her red braid swinging. “If not for me, stay for Lord Eustace. He is fond of you.”</p><p>Perhaps she thought invoking the man’s name would endear him to her, the way he’d thought to by speaking of Ser Eustace’s son Addam, for whom she had once cared. Like him, however, she’d erred. He would not strike her, like she’d struck him, though neither would it move him. “Yes. He is very fond of me, m’lady,” he replied sourly. “And if his sweet Alysanne was alive, he said, he’d want her to marry me. Then you’d be my lady mother. I never had a mother, much less a <em>lady</em> mother.”</p><p>Rohanne pressed her lips together and Dunk half-thought she might slap him. Or perhaps simply kick the crutch out beneath him. Perhaps she should. "What would you have me say, Duncan?"</p><p>
  <em>Say that you love me. Say that you will yield Coldmoat to Ser Eustace, with its lands and titles and wealth, and marry me instead. We can cross the Seven Kingdoms – the three of us. I’ll ride in tourneys and bestow on you every favour, and someday you’ll give me sons and daughters with fiery hair and freckles on their noses. We can sleep together beneath the night sky, tangled in each other’s embrace. We will be poor but happier than the wealthiest Dragon Kings.</em>
</p><p>But why would she? She was a highborn lady, beautiful, smart and strong of will, with many suitors and more, so many that they'd been held off with rumours of murder and witchcraft by rivals.</p><p>And who was he? Some baseborn welp (bastard-born most like too) from the filthy streets of the capital who called himself a knight to hide his shame. A liar he was, and serving her then enemy. They'd only spoken three times, but still he'd the balls to presume she cared for him. So much that he was offended she had not sat by his bed. </p><p>"Nothing," he sighed and ran the hand that was not supporting the crutch through his rain-soaked hair. “There is nothing to say.”</p><p>“You have the right to be mad. You’ve been nothing but courteous and kind, and I’ve been nothing but cruel and stubborn in return.” She took his one hand, her slender fingers strong, and clasped it tightly. “But we cannot leave things like this between us.”</p><p>“You can help me saddle Thunder,” he suggested.</p><p>She smiled coltishly, her emerald eyes sparkling in the firelight. “I had something else in mind.”</p><p>Deeper into the stables they went, the Red Widow moving slowly, considerate of his injured leg and heavy, limping step. Dunk’s heart raced so hard in his chest he was certain that it would leap out between his ribs. He’d never felt so nervous, not even in on the battlefield of Ashford Meadow for his trial by combat with Baelor Breakspear and his other five knights mounted beside him. She could not mean to lay with him, surely.</p><p>She stopped beside the stall that was opposite Thunder’s. Housed inside was a beautiful blood bay, a mare, with a brown coat brushed smooth and a crimson mane. A single strip of white ran the length of her nose, fading into a black muzzle. “What do you know of horses?”</p><p>“I ride one,” the Hedge Knight said, concealing his disappointment. He hated himself for what he'd wanted.</p><p>“An old destrier.” She took a carrot from the folds of her sleeve. The mare whickered excitedly, her slender head swinging back and forth. Rohanne stroked her snout as she fed her the carrot, careful not to crush her fingers in the bay’s hard teeth. “Bred for battle, slow-footed and ill-tempered. Not a horse to ride from place to place.” He noticed she cast Thunder an apologetic glance as if he understood and might take offense to her insult.</p><p>Dunk had owned three horses once. Chestnut, a stot, Sweetfoot, the old man’s palfrey, and Thunder, his warhorse. But he’d sold Sweetfoot to pay Steely Pate for his plate back in Ashford Meadow. He’d planned to buy her back once he’d won his tilt, but he’d hit Prince Aerion the evening prior, and by the time he’d survived his trial of seven, he’d nothing left to bargain with. Chestnut, meanwhile, perished in the Red Dunes of Dorne while they were in service to Lady Vaith later that same year.</p><p>“He suits me well enough. If I need to move place to place, there’s either him or these.” He wiggled his toes, but even that was excruciating.</p><p>“You have large feet,” Rohanne relented with a chuckle and rolled her shoulders. “And large hands too.” Dunk felt her eyes on him, moving over every inch of his near seven feet, lingering on his scarred face, his broad chest and flat stomach, and lower still. “I think you are large all over,” she purred, sending a crimson flush up his neck. “Too large for most palfreys. Still, a swifter mount would serve you better. One that was bred for beauty and endurance – A horse like her.”</p><p>“She’s beautiful,” he agreed, stroking the mare’s white snout. The beast pressed her nose to his palm, soft and warm. “But I cannot take her.”</p><p>Rohanne frowned. “Why not?”</p><p>“She is too fine for the likes of me.” He smiled, but it was a sad smile. He wasn’t looking at the horse when he said, “Just look at her.”</p><p>Rohanne’s face warmed and she held his eyes for several long moments before she turned back to fingering her braid. “I had to marry.” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “You know that I was forced to. My noble father’s will… Had I not, I would have lost everything.”</p><p>“I know…” And she couldn’t marry a hedge knight of Flea Bottom who knew not even when he was born.</p><p>“Don’t be such a fool.” Her eyes sparkled, filling with tears, and her bottom lip trembled.</p><p>“What else should I be?” He reached out to caress her cheek the same way he had her mare’s snout. Strokes more tender than expected of a man his size. “I’m thick as a castle wall and bastard-born besides.”</p><p>She turned her cheek into his palm and closed her eyes, savouring his touch. His skin was calloused, his fingers rough from holding lance and sword, but his touch was pleasant. She couldn't help imagining what it might be like to feel his hands on other parts. “Please, take the horse. I refuse to let you leave without something to remember me by.”</p><p>“I will remember you.” <em>As long as I live… </em>“Have no fear of that, m’lady.”</p><p>“Take her!” Rohanne shouted, a few hot tears falling from her eyes.</p><p>He caught her braid when it swung towards him. It was as soft as he had imagined it would be, sliding between his fingers like warm water. He held her chin in his other hand, letting the crutch fall with a clatter onto the floor, pulled her in, and pressed his mouth to hers violently. She tensed, but instead of pulling back or pushing him off her with a clout to match the one she had rewarded him with last week, Lady Rohanne returned the kiss. One slender arm coiled itself around his neck. The other she slipped behind his back, pulling him in so close she could feel his heart racing beneath her breast. Her tongue traced his lips softly and he parted them in response.</p><p>He’d only ever kissed one woman before, in Lannisport, when he was fifteen or sixteen and had indulged in too much wine. A tavern girl had taught him how to kiss. It wasn’t enough to merely press his mouth to hers, she’d said, showing him how to bite her lip or touch his tongue to hers, or where he ought to touch her to silently tell her when he wanted more. Though it never went past that.</p><p>Dunk explored Lady Rohanne’s mouth, relishing in the sweet wetness of her tongue. She tasted like Arbor Red. Rohanne’s hands moved from the back of his neck, where she’d curled her fingers into his loose, messy hair, to his shoulders, lightly pushing him into the stable wall. His leg screamed beneath him, threatening to buckle, but he was far too lost in her to care. The fabric of her skirts swished when she wove her leg round his waist, firmly pressing herself to him. She flexed her hips, kneading her warmth against his stiffening breeches. He wanted nothing more than to lay with her right then, to ease her into the hay, lift her silken skirts over her thighs (and find out if they too were freckled like her nose and neck and hands), and fully sheath himself inside her. He longed to kiss the curve of her neck and shoulders, to lightly nip the flesh of her modest breasts and belly, to hear his name tumble from her lips when he sent her over the edge of her pleasure.</p><p>But she was a married woman – married to a man who had shared with him his food, his water, and his roof.</p><p>“Stop…” He turned from her, his face flushed pink with arousal and shame. “We can’t….”</p><p>Despite herself, Rohanne nodded, wiping her tears with her fingers. She stepped back, her chin trembling, and Dunk fought the impulse to comfort her. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I started it,” the Hedge Knight said. “I never should have kissed you like that. It was not right.”</p><p>“It wasn’t, no.” She smoothed her skirts and licked her lips. She could still taste him. “It was nice though.”</p><p>A long silence stretched between them. Finally, he said, “I should be off. But there’s one other thing I should like… to remember you by.”  He pulled out the hunting knife he wore strapped to his thigh. Lady Rohanne inhaled sharply. In one swift swing he’d severed her red braid near the nape of her neck.</p><p>“Farewell, m’lady,” he said and, climbing onto Thunder’s back, rode out into the rain, the chequy cloak flowing behind him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I said <em>no</em>.”  Ser Duncan the Tall, Knight of Summerhall in service to House Targaryen, bent his neck to clear the wooden entryway of the Black Cauldron inn outside Fairmarket. He was a large man, near seven feet in height, with a broad frame that was a poor match to his pleasant face and kindly voice. After battering nearly every frame in the Seven Kingdoms with his skull, he’d finally learned when he need not stoop and when he should.</p><p>He stooped now, stepping from the Black Cauldron’s smoky hall into the harsh summer sunlight with a belly full of bacon, black pudding, eggs fried in bacon drippings, a half loaf of warm barley bread, and a cup of cool, sweet mead. The sun was high in the clear sky, and Duncan could only see a few thin clouds on the horizon, moving east towards the Vale of Arynn, rather than west. It was like to be hot and sunny, but otherwise pleasant weather.</p><p>He made for the stables, where his horses were kept overnight to rest. Thunder, his old warhorse, had long passed and Duncan had mourned him like a friend. Most knights preferred not to befriend their mounts, never naming them or preferring to name them the same thing, so it was not so hard if they died. Duncan had never heeded that council. His horses were his life and he could not help loving them. He’d named his next warhorse, a brown and white courser, Storm to honour the faithful steed, and his squire, Egg, had named the other two he’d purchased with coin he’d earned serving House Targaryen: a black destrier named Balerion, like the Black Dread, that Egg rode training against quintains, and a large palfrey with a snowy white mane named Valonqar for himself when he was not riding in tourneys.</p><p>After eight years and a dozen adventures between Dorne and the Wall, Duncan finally settled in the foothills near Summerhall. He swore his sword to Aegon and Maekar and all of House Targaryen, to serve them ever faithfully for the rest of his life. In return, he was presented with a holdfast a few hours outside Summerhall with all its lands and wealth. Instead of beneath hedges, he now slept in inns and castles, and could eat proper food whenever he pleased instead of hard salt beef and flavourless beer or cheap, sour wine. He still maintained the old ways, however, remembering that a true knight lived to serve the people, rather than the other way.</p><p>Egg, his prince and former squire, followed one step behind, having to sprint to keep pace. The name no longer suited him, now that he was a man and no longer shaved his silver head. He wore it like Duncan, loose to his chin with a few strands by his temples tied back with a leather string to keep it from his eyes. His father still thought it was better not to openly proclaim who he was while on the road, so he’d started tinting it with colourful dyes from Tyrosh instead. Today, it was a blue so rich that it looked black. “Why not?”</p><p>Catching his scent, Valonqar whickered and pranced around his stall as chickens scattered across the courtyard, squawking and knocking loose feathers in their scramble to avoid Duncan’s large, lumbering feet. He caressed the palfrey’s smoky-coloured snout. “The melee’s much too dangerous.”</p><p>Egg handed Duncan Valonqar’s leather saddle before climbing into Rain’s stall, brushing off the fat stable boy that ran to help them. Egg had served as Duncan’s squire for over eight years and tending the horses was near second nature to him now. “A joust is dangerous too and I joust.”</p><p>“You have ridden in one tilt,” Duncan reminded him, tightening a strap beneath Valonqar’s belly. Egg had ridden in the tourney celebrating his brother, Daeron’s, twenty-fifth nameday. The Dragon Prince’s opponent was none other than Duncan himself, since he wasn’t yet a knight and none of the other participants were brave enough to face him, fearful that he was as cruel as his other brother, Prince Aerion Brightflame, and might call for their heads if he lost. It was only supposed to be exhibition, but Duncan had held nothing back. He’d hit Egg square in the center of his shield with all his weight behind the blow, scratching two of the three heads off the dragon sigil, and sent Egg flying from his seat into the sand. When he’d visited him in his pavilion later that evening and found him nursing a bruised chest and pride, Duncan explained that he’d learn nothing by pretending. In tourneys, with fame and fortune on the line, there were few who would restrain themselves simply to preserve someone else’s honour, even princes. And on the battlefield, maintaining one’s seat after a charge could very well be life or death for him.</p><p>Of course, Egg wasn’t entirely wrong. Jousting <em>was </em>dangerous and accidents could happen when a pair of men, mounted in heavy suits of steel, brandishing lances, smashed headlong into each other. Sometimes the lances splintered, and broken wood could impale a man as easily as an arrow or spear. Other times, a lance missed its target, and hit the horse instead, like when Aerion’s lance hit Ser Humphrey Hardyng’s horse beneath his barding, piercing the beast’s neck. But that was intentional, or so Egg had believed – knowing what Aerion was capable of, Duncan was certain that he wasn’t wrong in that regard.</p><p>There were other risks too. A badly made breastplate could crumple, and a heavy strike could crack a man’s ribs. A misplaced strike could shatter bones into a hundred pieces, a foot caught in a stirrup could tear from its socket, and a horse could trample its rider. Duncan had even once seen a man catch his shield between his horse’s crupper and flanchard when he lost his seat, and bent his wrist so terribly, the bone snapped and thrust from his flesh.</p><p>Then there’d been Duncan’s own experience with Ser Uthor Underleaf, a hedge knight of poor character who’d been hired by Ser Alyn Cockshaw, companion to Daemon II Blackfyre, to kill him in the tourney at Whitewalls. Duncan had known nothing of the Blackfyre conspiracy (well… that wasn’t entire true; he’d overheard Gormon Peake and Tommard Heddle the night of the feast when he’d stepped out to piss, though he’d been far in his cups and hadn’t remembered half of what he’d overheard the following morn) but Cockshaw had taken personal offence to Daemon’s interest in Duncan. So he’d paid Ser Uthor not to merely strike his shield and force him from his saddle, but instead to hit his head in a “mishap” that, for someone else, would certainly have been fatal. Fortunately for him, Steely Pate was a master of his craft, though his work lacked the fine ornament of other armourers, and Duncan had a rather thick head.</p><p>Still, that was a fluke. In most circumstances, the intention of a joust was only to knock one’s opponent from his seat. A proper knight only struck his opponent’s shield and chest, inflicting as little pain as possible.</p><p>“A joust is one thing,” Duncan said. “A melee is quite another.”</p><p>“You fight in them,” Egg reminded him, saddling Rain. “You’ve always been better with a blade than a lance.”</p><p>Duncan scowled, wishing Egg was still young enough to threaten with a clout. He was better with a blade than a lance, in truth, but he’d improved since Ashford Meadows and Whitewalls, and won as oft as not. “I’m not a Targaryen,” he replied, making sure to lower his voice. “You <em>are</em>.”</p><p>“The fourth son of the fourth son,” Egg stated, as if it even mattered. A prince was a prince, regardless of how low in the line of succession he was.</p><p>“I’m tired of talking of this.” Duncan led the palfrey from his stall and handed the reigns to the fat stable boy while he retrieved Storm from one of the other stalls. He tied the warhorse’s leather reigns to a buckle on Valonqar’s flank so he would not run off. “You are not fighting in the melee. That’s final.”</p><p>Egg similarly tied Balerion to Rain.  “Y’know,” he said, his lips twisting. “I’m surprised you can even stand with that big stick shoved so far up your bum.”</p><p>Duncan wheeled on the prince. Though he was a few months short of his nineteenth year and had grown considerably since childhood, Egg was nowhere near so tall as Duncan; few men were. But he held his friend’s stare, his own purple eyes flaring. <em>Dragon’s blood,</em> Duncan thought. <em>That’s what makes the boy so bold.</em></p><p>“Do you remember what happened to Prince Baelor?” he thundered.</p><p>Egg thrust his chin out, refusing to concede. “Of course.” Prince Baelor Targaryen – Baelor Breakspear he was called – had been Egg’s eldest uncle and heir to the Iron Throne of Westeros. Egg had liked him. He would have served the realm well, it was believed, for he was honourable, strong and exceptionally wise. But he’d stood champion to Duncan in his trial of seven back in Ashford Meadow. He’d lost his life, with half his skull, when Egg’s father, Prince Maekar, struck him over the head with a mace.</p><p>Duncan had never forgotten him. It was he who had struck Aerion; he’d punched the cruel prince in that pretty, smug face, knocked out a tooth or two, and kicked him in the ribs when he’d taken to beating Tanselle, a Dornish puppeteer. Her only crime had been in performing a puppet show, for in the third act a brave knight slayed a dragon, and Aerion had taken offense, saying it was a veiled threat to House Targaryen. Everyone knew it was not so; it was a play. But he’d still broken her finger in response. He likely would have snapped each one had Duncan not intervened. It was instinct; the Hedge Knight had taken a fancy to her and hearing her long, slender fingers – that had only a moment before brought puppets to life – snap like old sticks had sent him into a blind rage.  </p><p>He relived it sometimes, in his nightmares, only it wasn’t always Tanselle that he was protecting. Sometimes it was Lady Rohanne Webber, with her soft braid of red hair hanging over her shoulder and her emerald eyes full of tears. Other times, it was Nymeria, the bard from Winterfell, and instead of puppets, it was for singing a song that Aerion broke her fingers. Whoever it was, Duncan’s hands would become fists and he’d forget that his name was now Ser Duncan the Tall and become Dunk of Flea Bottom, the big, stupid thug.</p><p>Afterwards, everything played out the way it had in real life. The charge of fourteen horses, the clash of steel, and finally, Duncan falling on Aerion like a ravaging wolf, beating him into submission. He’d learn that two others, the Humfreys, perished from their wounds, from the lips of Baelor Breakspear, bedecked in his son’s black steel. But his voice would slur, the way a tipsy man’s voice would, and he’d sway and blood would fall like rain from his visor. When his helm was finally removed, Duncan would see that something was wrong. Very wrong. His black hair – for he looked more Martell than Targaryen – would be matted with blood and a filmy greyish liquid, and oddly flat on one side. Then there would be screams for those behind him could see that when he’d taken off the helm, his skull had sloughed off with it, leaving nothing but his brain exposed, slightly thrumming.</p><p>And then Duncan would catch him when he stumbled, covered in the man’s noble blood, watching his life fade from his eyes. It was for his sake that Baelor and the Humfreys were killed. Since then, though he’d participated in melees, he’d never particularly liked them.</p><p>“I know Prince Maekar never meant to kill him. You know that too,” Duncan said when Egg’s eyes flickered shamefacedly. “Yet Baelor is nine years dead, his sons too, and Aerys now sits the Iron Throne. And some say that the realm still suffers for it. Accidents happen.”</p><p><em>And I will not watch you die… </em>he thought but he kept that to himself, watching as Egg climbed into his saddle with a frown. <em>I could not bear it if something happened to you…</em></p><p>.</p><p>Egg was obstinately silent for most of the ride west. He hung back, riding a ways behind Duncan, scowling and muttering in High Valyrian. Duncan had never learned the ancient tongue, but he knew he was likely saying something that would have made his late mother blush. </p><p>They were heading towards Blackwood Vale and Raventree Hall, where Lord Blackwood was hosting a tourney for his only daughter’s eighteenth nameday, and every knight and lord from the riverlands would be there to celebrate. Most of them could not care less about Lord Blackwood or his children, though there would be some lords there to make proposals for Lady Blackwood’s hand.</p><p>House Blackwood was a formidable house, with an ancient seat and an even older history. Their weirwood tree was a legend, and apparently brought in hundreds of ravens every night to perch within its white branches. It was from that that the Blackwoods had taken their House’s sigil: eleven ravens round a silver weirwood on a black shield, blazoned on a field of scarlet. Duncan had seen weirwoods in Winterfell’s godswood and couldn’t imagine anything more impressive than the heart tree crying sap as red as blood. There were few weirwoods in the south, where most people were born in the Light of the Seven. But there was something strangely alluring about them, and Raventree Hall’s sounded very impressive indeed.</p><p>Initially, Egg was as excited as Duncan, and had talked endlessly while they’d travelled north, repeating tales of the Old Gods and the watchful eyes of the weirwoods and the Children of the Forest, who had lived in Westeros before the coming of the First Men, or the histories of the Blackwoods and their rivals the Brackens, and Arlan III Durrandon, one of the Storm Kings who had ruled the riverlands well before the coming of Aegon the Conqueror, that he’d learned from his older brother, Maester Aemon.</p><p>But that was before they’d fought over his participation in the melee. Now, the princeling was quiet and sullen.</p><p>Duncan, for his part, filled the silence with bawdy songs he’d learned either from Nymeria or in inns and taverns. His wasn’t a voice meant for singing, but there was no one on the road, save for them, and he knew it would bother Egg.</p><p>“<em>The Dornishman’s blade was made of black steel! And its kiss was a terrible thing!</em>” he sang into the afternoon, tapping a beat on the horn of his saddle.</p><p>“Can you stop that?” Egg moaned. “I’d rather listen to cats tearing each other to pieces.”</p><p>“No.” Duncan sang even louder. “<em>The Dornishman’s wife would sing as she bathed in a voice that was sweet as a peach!</em>”</p><p>“Seriously! Stop!” Egg pressed his palms to his ears. “You’re not even in tune!”</p><p>He led Rain and Balerion off the beaten road, taking them beneath an overhang of apple trees whose branches were heavy with fruit. The ground was covered in apples that had grown so ripe that they’d fallen from their branches. Most of them looked to be chewed on by critters and bees. When Egg rode over them, a bunch of black flies took flight with a buzz, only settling back on the brown, wrinkled flesh once he’d passed.</p><p>Balancing in his stirrups, Egg picked several of the bright, red fruit. He packed most of them in the bags thrown over Rain’s rump for later, held one particularly crunchy one between his teeth, and tucked four more in the crook of his elbow. They were beginning to wrinkle and bruise and smelled so sweet he knew they were already half-rotten.</p><p>He pulled back his arm and flung one of the apples at the back of Duncan’s head, hitting him where his sun-streaked hair was lazily tied into a knot. “Ow!” Duncan rubbed the back of his head with his middle and third fingers. “You little shit!”</p><p>“I said stop.” Egg threw another apple, this time hitting the knight on the shoulder. The apple was as ripe as Egg had thought it was and burst, leaving a brown-gold splotch on Duncan’s plain, brown tunic. Better that than his silk tunic, he thought. As a landed knight, he now owned several tunics in several colours, fabrics and styles. His nicest was an orange tunic covered in several eight-pointed stars embroidered in lighter orange silk thread and trimmed with cloth-of-gold. Beneath it he wore a crimson shirt and across the back, his elm tree sigil was sewn in silver.</p><p>Duncan half-turned in his saddle and, wearing an enormous grin, shouted, “<em>What does it matter, for all men must die! And I’ve tasted the Dornishman’s wife!</em>”</p><p>Egg threw his last two apples in rapid succession. Duncan evaded the first one, watching it sail over his head and tumble along the road, where it was promptly trampled by Valonquar’s black hooves, and caught the second, which he threw back. Egg covered his face with both hands just in time to avoid being hit in the face. “That would have sounded far more convincing if you’d actually tasted a Dornishwoman,” he sneered.</p><p>Egg meant to enrage him by reminding him that they had never located the Dornish puppeteer, Tanselle Too-Tall, of whom Duncan had been fond. She may very well be dead; he had not seen her since Ashford Meadow nine years ago. He hoped not. He hoped she’d simply settled somewhere, perhaps with a husband and a bunch of tall children, for whom she would perform puppet shows. Better still, he hoped she wasn’t, and he might find her someday and share those pork sausages he’d promised her.</p><p>But Duncan refused to rise to the bait. Instead, he shrugged. “At least I’ve tasted a woman – <em>both</em> her lips, mind - even if they weren’t Dornish. You have not even tasted one set, little maid.”</p><p>Egg fumed, his pale face flushing red in stark contrast to his sapphire blue tunic with its scrollwork trim and matching silver buttons fashioned into stars. “I… I simply… That is to say that…” But he had no words in which to finish his sentence. Duncan wasn’t wrong. Egg had only ever kissed his sister, Rhae, when they were both children. Or rather, <em>she</em> had kissed <em>him</em>, when he’d spat out the love potion she’d slipped him to try and bewitch him into marrying her instead of his older sister, Daella. Though even then, it was not really a kiss. Not the kind of kisses men normally shared with women.</p><p>He’d never wanted either of them, truth be told. It wasn’t because they were his sisters. Targaryens were of the blood of Old Valyria, and Valyrians had wed brothers to sisters to keep their bloodlines pure for thousands of years. His namesake, Aegon the Conquerer, had wed <em>both </em>his sisters, Rhaenys and Visenya.</p><p>But no, that was not the reason. The reason was Egg wasn’t even remotely interested in the concept of marriage or laying with women. He wanted a cloak as white as snow, a place of honour on the Kingsguard, who swore vows never to wed or to father children, who forsook their families, lands, and most titles, in service of the King. There was nothing that specified the Kingsguard needed to be virgins, but Egg simply hadn’t seen the point. Not to mention that most of the women he’d met while travelling with Duncan were whores. Kind whores. Pretty whores, but whores nevertheless. And he’d never liked the idea of paying someone for their company.</p><p>“Why’re you smug? You have only known one woman,” Egg finally shot back.</p><p>“This is true,” Duncan relented. The humour in his tone faded, his voice becoming serious. “But she was a kind woman. Good. Honest. And smart. Quite smart. I miss her.”</p><p>Spurring his horse, Egg moved up beside him. Suddenly, it wasn’t fun teasing him. “I miss her singing,” he said.</p><p>“Me too.”</p><p>“She was better than you,” Egg said with a laugh.</p><p>When Duncan closed his eyes, he could still hear her, her melodious voice cutting over the thrum of the chattering northmen and clinking pewterware while a cold wind blew outside and made the fire in the hearth shiver. He could see her fingers moving over her lute strings, and her loose brown hair shifting slightly as she tilted her head, lost in the music. “She was.”</p><p>“Did you…?” Egg hesitated and Duncan cast him a curious look. He’d never hidden the fact that his relationship with Nymeria was physical. Whenever Egg was nearby, the most they’d ever shared was a brief kiss. Sometimes Duncan held her hand on walks. But he never fondled her breasts or put a hand beneath her skirts, or took her where Egg might see, for he believed in keeping that kind of thing private. Since he’d shared his pallet in Winterfell’s cellar with Egg, he only ever visited her; she had never come to him. Though he’d never hidden where he went, and as Egg grew older, Duncan slowly became more comfortable talking about what exactly had happened between them.</p><p>Egg chewed his bottom lip nervously. “Did you love her?”</p><p>It was a moment before Duncan replied. “Yes.” Nymeria wasn’t beautiful the way Lady Rohanne or Tanselle Too-Tall had been. She was from the North, shaped and hardened by the cold, harsh lands. Her hair was a bland brown, like frozen mud, and hung round her narrow face in flat ringlets. Her nose was hawkish, her lips were pale pink and thin, and her body was reed thin. But her eyes… She was of similar age, but her eyes spoke of something far older, like she’d seen things he could never hope to imagine. It was like she was carved from stone. But like the weirwoods, and crumbling castle ruins, there was something that Duncan had found rather pretty.</p><p>She’d been kind to him too. Where most noble ladies only looked on him long enough to notice that he was exceptionally tall, Nymeria seemed sincere when she’d taken a seat at his table and struck up a conversation on that cold, dark morning. “I like talking,” she’d said, “People call me ‘Old Nan’ because I talk too much. They say that I’m like a nattering old woman.” Her laughter was contagious. It made her prettier, somehow.</p><p>For the two years he’d spent in Lord Stark’s service, she’d taught him to read (with Egg, who had liked to sit through his lessons and insert his own tutelage whenever it suited him) and swim and how to track animals like a northman. She’d told him stories of the Old Gods and of the wildlings beyond the Wall and even of the Others, the ones they called White Walkers, who’d been extinct for thousands of years. And one morning, while they were strolling through the godswood, she’d stopped beneath the heart tree, its leaves as red as blood, and sap streaming from the carved eyes like tears, and kissed him.</p><p>It was a light kiss on his lips, soft and tender, and brief. But it was followed with a second, as soft as before, but longer. And then a third. And when Nymeria parted her lips and buried her hands in his hair, he’d known that she’d wanted him the same way he’d wanted her. So later that night, when he was sure that Egg would not wake, he’d snuck through Winterfell’s cold halls, and found her room, a short ways from Lady Stark’s, high in the Great Keep.</p><p>They had taken their time, kissing and touching and slowly undressing beneath the bear-skin blankets, savouring the feeling of their each other’s naked skin. He’d kissed every inch of her: her lips and neck, her shoulders and arms and fingertips, calloused from playing her lute. He’d brushed his lips over her silky, white breasts, heavy with milk, for she was nursemaid to Lady Stark’s children, and her soft belly and inner thighs, and his heart skipped a beat when she’d wiggled and laughed and said that she was rather ticklish.</p><p>Finally, he’d knelt between her legs, and started to tremble. He was frightened, he’d confessed. He’d never been with a woman before, but he knew she’d been with a man, for she had one bastard son – a boy named Adryan, only a year old then.</p><p>But she’d simply brushed his hair behind one ear, kissed his sweetly and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Her other went between them, tracing his muscled stomach with her nail, clutched his manhood and guided him to her warm, wet entrance. He’d swallowed a breathless moan, concerned he’d sound too brutish, instead burying his face in her neck and breathing in the cold, northern scent of her skin and hair, of earth and pine and snow. He’d entered her slowly, pausing several times when he thought her cries were of pain. He'd recalled a story she’d told him once about the giants living north of the Wall, and how they could tear a human woman apart before they entered her completely. He wasn’t a giant, at least, not that he knew, but still he worried he might break her.</p><p>When he told her that, Nymeria only laughed that contagious laugh, flexed her hips, and pulled him in even more. He moved on instinct, thrusting into her slowly, but clumsily. It wasn’t elegant or sweet, like the kisses they had shared, and after only a few sharp thrusts, he’d hit his limit and shamefully spilled his seed inside her. She hadn’t minded though, and they tried again a few nights later. This time, he’d listened to her moans and sighs of pleasure, and held out so that they finished together. And every few nights thereafter, he visited her, learning more and more of what brought her the most pleasure, and what brought him his own.</p><p>“I loved her very much,” the knight said, thinking of those nights, when he’d lay with her in her warm bed, covered in furs, her head resting on his shoulder and her fingers tracing circles over his skin while cold, harsh windows howled outside.</p><p>“Then why’d you leave Winterfell?” Egg wondered. “I’m sure Lord Stark would have taken you.”</p><p>Duncan rolled his broad shoulders. “He might have. I would have told him no though. I was already sworn to you. I’d promised your father that I would guide you, teach you honour, strength and valour, so you’d not turn out… well…”</p><p>“You can say it,” said Egg. “So I wouldn’t become cruel like Aerion, or as half-witted as Daeron.”</p><p>Duncan nodded. It was not treason if the prince said it.</p><p>“So it’s my fault, then.”</p><p>“Don’t say that.” Duncan’s face went hard. “It wasn’t your fault. I swore you and your father oaths, and a knight’s honour means nothing if he cannot keep his word. I would have kept it no matter who I was sworn to. Yes, I loved Nymeria. I will for the rest of my life. She is probably married now. That boy Willis cared for her. Perhaps she finally returned his love and took him to be her husband, with a child or two. And if so, then I’m happy. That is what it means to love someone; to value their happiness, safety and wellbeing over your own. Remember that.”</p><p>Duncan spurred Valonqar into a canter, Storm following right behind. The road was clear and wide, and he needed to clear his head of the memories of the north. Sometimes, though he’d never tell Egg, he wished he’d stayed with her in Winterfell. It was cold there and frighteningly old. Every time he walked outside, he felt like he was stepping through time, to before the Conquest or the First Men. And of course, there were the fierce ironborn to contend with, constantly raiding the coastal towns and fishing villages, and even parties of wildlings from the north that managed, somehow, to breach the Wall and come south. But he’d felt safe with her. There were times when he’d imagined settling with her, whether in the Great Keep or in their own small house in the frosted hills, and having babies with her. He imagined the long nights of winter, and listening to her sing beside the fire, while he played with his sons on the floor, re-enacting the battles of old with little play soldiers made of wood.</p><p>But then those boys’ faces would change into Egg’s and he’d remember where his loyalties were. The truth was, Duncan loved Egg more than he’d imagined possible. He’d never had siblings, not that he knew of. The closest to a father he’d had was old Ser Arlan who had plucked him from King’s Landing when he was a child, more beast than boy. He’d precious few friends and fewer still that he might count on in times of need. Ser Raymun Fossoway was still the only person who came to mind.</p><p>But Egg… Egg had become his brother. He’d looked out for him when he was his squire and every time his life had been threatened, Duncan felt his own heart stop in response. Each time he’d stopping thinking of himself, his own safety, and barreled headlong into whatever awaited him. He knew that this is what it meant to love someone. To <em>truly</em> love someone. This is what a brother felt for his brother… what a father felt for his son.</p><p>Egg was all that had mattered, and Duncan knew that he would have his own throat cut if it meant keeping the princeling safe. For now and for ever.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite the fact that he’d started talking a bit again, Egg hadn’t completely forgotten the melee, nor Duncan’s refusal to let him sign up for it. He might’ve once served as Duncan’s squire, and he’d never been knighted, it’s true, but he was a man, a prince of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and of Old Valyria. Duncan was a former hedge knight, baseborn and bastard-born. He no longer had the right to say what Egg could or couldn’t do!</p><p>“A wise man recognizes what he knows, and what he lacks, and heeds the council of those who are better informed,” Duncan had replied when Egg had said as much.</p><p>But still Egg felt that it wasn’t fair. He wasn’t a child anymore; he was nearly nineteen, and by law a man grown. Many men and boys fought in tourneys and on the battlefield, without someone telling them it was not safe. Duncan himself was seventeen, or perhaps sixteen – he’d never seemed to know – when he’d taken Egg on to be his squire. And if it was his nobility… then it made even less sense. The time would come when he would have to fight for the honour of his House. Better to learn when his opponents were only pretending, playing war with blunted weapons, than when his life was in true peril.</p><p>The tourney grounds lay a league outside the walls of Raventree Hall, a sprawling city of silk pavilions, viewing stands made of timber, inns, list barriers, merchant stalls, stages, a beaten track for horse races, and covered wagons selling steel and weapons, bread, cheeses, fruit, sweets and wines.</p><p>As Duncan and Egg searched for some place to raise their pavilions, they saw the coloured tents of several high lords and knights and knew them by the banners or shields erected outside. Egg recognized the banners of the Blanetrees, brown and green leaves scattered across a field of yellow, the black and brown ploughman of the Darrys, House Erenford’s fish-eating heron, the blue towers belonging to the Freys of the Crossing, Lord Mallister’s silver eagle on its stretch of purple, a nude woman frolicking with a length of white silk, the banner of House Piper of Pinkmaiden, House Smallwood’s acorns on yellow, and the black bats of the Whents among countless more. House Tully, the liege lords of the riverlands, were in the center of the pavilion village.</p><p>There was no sign of the red stallion of the Brackens, though that was no surprise. The Blackwoods and the Brackens were ancient enemies, their feud harkening back to before the coming of the Andals. They made peace from time to time, and honoured other Houses in tourneys and celebrations, but the Brackens would never suffer to celebrate the nameday of a Blackwood, nor a Blackwood a Bracken.</p><p>There was an empty spot beside the Tullys’ blue and red striped tent, held in reserve for the prince (or princes) of House Targaryen. There was no room behind or beside for Duncan, so the former hedge knight had to find someplace else, nearer the outer perimeter. Once, he’d slept beneath the open sky, far from the others, with only trees and bushes for his shelter, so the edge of the throng was hardly inconvenient or a strike to his pride. But he misliked being far from his prince. Egg was free here to call himself “Aegon”, let his hair hang out silver, and wear the black and crimson colours of his House, but these were no less perilous times and Duncan hated that he was not right next to him, should he need his knight and his sword.  But he’d little choice in the matter. The Tullys, at least, had guards aplenty, and Egg had skill enough to fight if needed.</p><p>After Egg’s pavilion was raised, the interior well furnished with a feather bed covered in sleeping furs, racks, tables and chairs and every other comfort of home, he called for a servant to bring him a copper tub and buckets of scalding water for his bath so he might wash off the morning’s ride.</p><p>“I’m to see the master of the games,” announced Duncan as the light was becoming more fierce in the sky. Though it was a few hours still before the sun truly set, the better part of the day had passed. “Once I’ve returned, would you prefer to eat here or in that tavern we went by earlier? I overheard someone say that they are serving venison.”</p><p>Egg wasn’t in the mood to eat with other people, make small talk with a bunch of noble strangers and listen to knights one-up each other on stories of their victories on the battlefield, or how many women each of them bedded, but he knew it would be rude to spend the entire evening in his pavilion with Duncan only. So he said they would eat with everyone once he’d washed.</p><p>A pair of boys, only eleven or twelve, carried in a copper tub, while a third struggled with a pail of steaming water. He walked slowly so not to burn himself. It would take two more trips from the well and fires where each pail was brought to a boiled to fill the tub.</p><p>While he waited, Egg laid out a doublet with a high collar made of black leather and slashed with crimson silk. On the collar and sleeves was woven crimson scalemail with matching metal filigree on both cuffs, and buttons shaped like dragon teeth running the length of the shirtfront. Then he laid out a pair of black leather breeches with flames sewn in glossy red thread along each leg, soft, supple calfskin boots and a blood red cloak to pin to one shoulder with a heavy broach fashioned into a silver, three-headed dragon. <em>Garments made for royalty</em>, he thought, fingers lightly running over the fabric with a <em>swish</em>.</p><p>When Duncan returned a half hour later, Egg’s pavilion was suffocatingly warm and full of steam that floated out like mist when he stepped between the flaps. He thought he would find the prince submerged in the boiling water, rinsing the blue dye from his hair, or resting with his neck on the edge of the tub, his eyes half-closed. But the tub, and tent, were both empty.</p><p>“Egg?” he called, finding no trace of the boy but for the clothes he’d set on the bed. He poked his head out of the black and red stripped pavilion, whistling for the squires that had hauled in the tub and water. He towered over them, and beneath his shadow, the three of them looked ready to cry. “Where is Prince Aegon?”</p><p>They exchanged nervous glances and for several moments, remained silent. The eldest one of the trio spoke up first. “Gone, ser.”</p><p>Goose pimples raised across Duncan’s skin. Before he could stop himself, he shouted, “<em>Gone</em>? Gone where?”</p><p>“He never said, ser,” stammered another one, a boy of ten with a mop of brown curls and a lisp. “We were bringin’ ‘im ‘is tub an’ ‘e said ‘e was leavin’. Took a ‘orse.”</p><p>“The black one, ser,” said the third. “He’s the prince. We never thought... It wasn't our place to ask him.”</p><p><em>Seven hells…</em> Duncan had known Egg was frustrated over that business concerning the melee. To run though… And where would he run to? Wherever he was, Duncan had to find him before someone else learned the truth of what – and who – he was.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time Egg reached the Black Cauldron in Fairmarket, the sun was a half-circle on the horizon. The sky was a wash of pale peach and lilac purple and cobalt where stars were beginning to emerge. The same stable boy from that morning rushed to his side, wondering if they’d forgotten something and had returned for it. Egg said no, that he only wanted Balerion stabled for one more night, and a room for himself.</p>
<p>“I’ll brush him myself,” Egg said, tossing a copper to the boy. “But see to a room, and let me know what’s cooking for supper. I’m starving.”</p>
<p>The boy nodded several times with a “’Course m’lord. Right away, m’lord.” before running as fast as his fat, stubby legs would carry him. Egg retrieved two apples from his pocket, the ones that he’d picked this morning on their way to Raventree Hall. He offered one to Balerion, took a bite of his own, and brushed the warhorse’s black hair starting with his poll. Egg worked methodically, pausing only to eat his apple and offer him the core when he was finished. He was cleaning mud out from Balerion’s rear hooves when he heard a high-pitched shriek coming from the nearby side street, followed by haughty laughter.</p>
<p><em>Ignore it…</em> Egg thought, chewing his last mouthful. He’d seen enough of Westeros while he was Duncan’s squire to know that there were times when a knight should intervene on behalf of the smallfolk. Yet, there were more times when he ought to let things be. But the voice – clearly that of a woman – cried out again, louder this time, and when he swallowed, the fruit lodged firmly in his throat.</p>
<p>Balerion whickered and slammed his hoof in the hay, shaking his large, black head nervously. Egg stroked his neck to calm him, though his own stomach had leapt to his throat and he thought he might vomit. “I will be right back,” he promised.</p>
<p>The screams were coming from behind a butcher’s shop. The butcher itself was closed, the chickens, pigs and sheep corralled into pens for the night. They made quite a bit of noise, bleating, clucking and squealing in response to the woman’s frantic pleas, so loud that it was no wonder no one else had heard her. Fortunately, it also concealed his footsteps on the cobbled stones.</p>
<p>He saw immediately that there were four of them, surrounding the screaming woman, laughing, taking turns fingering her long, black hair, nuzzling her neck and pulling at her skirts and bodice. Egg had seen the peculiar way women would behave sometimes when men wanted between their legs. They’d chastise him for their crude words, leap like fish from his hands or smack his cheeks when a hand roamed too low on their backsides, only to chuckle and smile and fall into his lap.</p>
<p>But it was obvious that she wasn’t a barmaid or a whore and that this was a game only the men were interested in playing.</p>
<p>“Get off me!” she shrieked, beating the man that held her with her tiny fists. He had long, sinewy brown hair that hadn’t likely been washed in weeks, a hooked nose, and broken teeth. Her beating had no effect, other than to make them laugh harder. “Do you even know who I - ”</p>
<p>Another man, a short, stocky man with a wiry beard and only three fingers on one hand, kicked the back of her knees out and she smacked into the brick wall of the butcher shop, so violently Egg heard the <em>crack</em>. Dazed, she stumbled less than a foot before the broken-toothed man caught her by the hem of her skirt, flipped her over in the hay of the pigsty and forced himself between her legs, prying her knees open with his own.</p>
<p>“No! Stop!” She tried twisting her hips and pulling her legs together, but the man was far larger, and much stronger, than her. Her voice broke, choking on a sob.</p>
<p>Egg pulled his sword from its sheath and whistled between his teeth, high and shrill. “Hey!”</p>
<p>All four men turned, their homely faces falling, clearly not pleased to be interrupted. “We found this cunt first,” snarled one with a face covered in pockmarks and a whisper of a mustache on his lip. His hand rested on a knife on his leather belt. “Get yer own.”</p>
<p>“She said stop,” Egg hissed, ignoring him. “There’re plenty of brothels in this town for you. Let this woman be.”</p>
<p>The four men burst out laughing as if Egg had just told a hilarious joke.</p>
<p>“’As some balls, this one,” laughed the one with broken teeth. It was a coarse, nasally laugh. “Tell me: you got more ‘an peach fuzz on ‘em yet?”</p>
<p>A bald man with filmy weasel eyes, the last of the four, tossed him two coppers. “For one of them brothels. Find some pretty thing to suck your cock, little man. This one’s ours.”</p>
<p>Egg pressed his teeth together, his fingers tightening round the hilt of his sword. <em>My name is Aegon of House Targaryen and I’m the blood of the Dragon</em>! he longed to yell. But instead he pulled his lips into a feral smirk. “Call me ‘little man’ one more time…”</p>
<p>“And what? Guess ye’ can’t count, <em>little man</em>. There’s four ‘o us against one o’ you.”</p>
<p>Egg bent his knees slightly, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. <em>I’m the blood of the Dragon</em>! he said to himself.</p>
<p>The woman stole the chance to lash out. She clawed the cheek of the broken-toothed man kneeling over her, her nails carving three harsh lines from his ear to his mouth. He roared and fell back, clutching his face. She shoved him off with a firm kick to his belly and clambered to her shoeless feet. She had lost her slippers somewhere.</p>
<p>That was all Egg needed. He lunged forward, in time to catch the bald man’s short sword as he pulled it loose of its scabbard. The other two had taken out their knives, were moving to encircle him.</p>
<p>With a cry like a wildcat, the women leapt onto the back of the short, stocky man with only three fingers. There was a hard, wet sound, then a fountain of red as she slid from his back, pulling a knife from his throat.</p>
<p>Pockmarks reached for her savagely, but his hands never touched her pale skin. Egg feinted and rammed Baldy with his shoulder, causing him to trip over Broken-Tooth, then brought his blade down on Pockmarks’s hand. Pockmarks howled, three of his five fingers hanging on by one, thin flap of skin. He wheeled and blindly thrust his knife towards Egg’s thigh. But Egg leapt back and caught the knife on the edge of his sword, twisted, and sent the blade clattering over the stones. Pockmarks stumbled, and Egg came in with a low stab that ran the man through.</p>
<p>Broken-Tooth had regained his wits and Baldy found his feet. The man looked to be half-blind with his eyes milky white, but he was faster than Egg expected, hacking and slashing. Egg felt a sudden bite of steel cut through his shoulder and cried out, his sword falling from his fingers. Baldy smirked, his teeth tiny and sharp, and kicked Egg’s sword aside.</p>
<p>Clutching his shoulder, Egg kept space between them by moving closer to the butcher’s pens. He dodged left and right, avoiding Baldy’s thrusts, and used his momentum to side-step and boot him hard in the backside. Baldy tripped on pig shit beneath the hay, sliding to his knees. Egg ran up behind him, feeling for his own hunting knife, and held it to Baldy’s throat. Baldy swiped with his short sword, but Egg pressed his knife harder into the wrinkled flesh of the man’s throat. “Drop it and yield and I might let you go.”</p>
<p>“You got more ‘an peach fuzz, little man,” Baldy croaked, still swinging. “Think she’ll spread ‘er legs for ye’ now that ye’ve slain us, ‘s’that it?”</p>
<p>“Yield!”</p>
<p>“Fuck off.” He spat, a blob of bloody spit and phlegm from when he’d bitten his tongue in the fall. “Kill me ‘en. See if the li’l slut with bend over for ye’.”</p>
<p>Egg had heard enough. If the man wouldn’t beg for his life, so be it. He pulled his knife across Baldy’s throat, heard his last, bubbly murmur, and let the body fall forward with a heavy <em>thump</em>.</p>
<p>Broken-Tooth had trapped the woman between the wall and himself, but kept leaping back when she stabbed with her knife, wide, wild arcs. Her bodice had been torn and flopped from one shoulder, and one eye was bloodshot from a brutal backhand that was causing black-blue bruises to blossom on her cheek. Egg noticed Broken-Tooth’s breeches were half-laced, his manhood stiff with arousal even as he evaded her savage stabs and swings.</p>
<p>Duncan might have said that it was craven to strike a man’s back, for he’d not the chance to fight back. But the way he saw it, the man was a craven for forcing himself on the woman in the first place. So Egg kicked him swiftly between his legs, feeling man’s testicles crunch like eggshells beneath his boot. Broken-Tooth fell like a bag of bricks to his knees and Egg swung his sword with all his strength, burying the blade into his neck, and cutting near through his clavicle, scapula and sternum.</p>
<p>The woman’s brown eyes were wide and fearful as she watched Egg kick Broken-Tooth off his sword and wipe off the blood in his sleeve. “Don’t hurt me,” she whimpered, cowering in the corner. She’d forgotten the knife she still held in her trembling fingers.</p>
<p>“I won’t,” he said, and slipped his sword back in its sheath. He thought it should be obvious that he wasn’t like them, but then he supposed it made sense. There were men out there that <em>would</em> kill to have her for themselves. “My name’s Egg. I’m a knight,” he lied, a bit too easily.</p>
<p>“I’ve never heard of a Ser Egg.” She was still trembling, but her fear shifted into mistrust, and she raised the knife slightly.</p>
<p>He kept well from her and raised both hands in surrender. “I’m only a hedge knight, my lady, seeking fame and fortune at Raventree Hall.”</p>
<p> “You’re here to fight in Lord Blackwood’s tourney?” Her black-brown eyes looked him over suspiciously and, for a moment, Egg thought perhaps she saw through his lies. She was a mere peasant, though, and could not possibly recognize a prince.</p>
<p>“That’s the plan. Though high lords and knights look none too fondly on hedge knights like me.” He remembered the whispered insults, open scorn and venomous stares the high lords and landed knights once bestowed on Duncan. </p>
<p>“Then they are fools. You acted as gallantly as any landed knight, ser. Thank you for saving me.” She slipped her knife into a leather sheath beneath her skirts, high on her hip. Egg’s eyes widened and she shrugged. “I never thought I’d need of it, truth be told, but I thought it was important to carry.”</p>
<p>Egg nudged the short, stocky man she’d killed with his toe. “Is that the first life you’ve ever taken?”</p>
<p>For some time, she was silent. “Yes.”</p>
<p>“It’s never easy,” Egg said, hoping it sounded comforting. “You had no choice though.”</p>
<p>“Didn’t I?” Her lips trembled and twisted and her chest heaved with a sigh. “They would have…”</p>
<p>“They would have raped you, each of them, and likely more than once.” There was no point in mincing words. “Best case, they would have left you there, with a bastard in your belly come morning. The worse, they would have slit your throat to make sure no one ever heard of what happened. You had to kill them or they would have most certainly killed you.”</p>
<p>“But what happens now?” she wondered.</p>
<p>“We could hide the bodies,” Egg suggested, “but someone’s bound to find them and that would look suspicious. We should tell the city watch and – ”</p>
<p>She clutched his wrist, her eyes suddenly wild with fear. “No!”</p>
<p>“Why not?” She was concerned that they would be called murderers, and sentenced to hang, most like. “These men were rapers. They won’t hang us for killing rapers.” Besides, he thought, if there was a fuss, he’d simply show them what he kept tucked into the toe of his boot.</p>
<p>“Please… We can’t tell the city watch. Not yet anyways.”</p>
<p>Not yet…? How strange. Perhaps she was a criminal herself, a murderer (she claimed she’d never taken a life, but perhaps she was lying, same as he) or a thief and she meant to flee the town in the cover of night. Or perhaps she was a whore from one of the brothels who had run, and was afraid of being sent back. There were no slaves in Westeros, but some brothel owners would not take it well if one of their investments ran off on them.</p>
<p>But she looked so fearful, her hands so cold and pale clutching his wrist, he nodded. “Okay… There’s an inn nearby. The Black Cauldron,” he said. “Can I buy you something to eat? I’m not sure what’s cooking for supper, but it’s like to be ready by now.”</p>
<p>“I’d like that.” She smiled, a brief but pretty smile. “You are most courteous, ser.”</p>
<p>“Uh…Your breasts’re showing,” Egg said realizing that her shirt was still torn. He turned away, but not before he’d seen her breasts in full. She had nice ones, he thought, his neck and ears warm. They were about as large as apples, milky white, and firm-looking, her nipples a brownish pink and perfectly round. But there was a heat stirring between his legs and he quickly thought of something else.</p>
<p>She covered herself with her torn bodice, holding the broken strap to her shoulder.</p>
<p>“Here.” His cloak was a bit heavy for this weather, lined with seal-skin to keep off the rain when it showered, but it was long, so it would cover her enough that she wouldn’t need to keep one hand on her shirt. “Hold it like that and I can pin it shut,” he instructed her, sliding a broach through the thick fabric. His broach was fashioned from obsidian into the shape of a dragonfly with a pair of finespun silver wings and chips of rubies for the eyes. It was a fine piece – too fine to belong to a baseborn hedge knight, to be sure, but she was a commoner, and couldn’t possibly know its worth, nor trace him to his House by it.</p>
<p>She stiffened and he realized his mistake in touching her so soon. “Forgive me,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have…”</p>
<p>“It’s okay.” She smiled again, but it was clearly forced, her brow pinched and heavy lines set around her mouth. “It’ll pass, I think. I simply… need some space.”</p>
<p>“Then space you’ll have,” he replied and took a step back.</p>
<p>The Black Cauldron was crowded with people when he returned, the woman a few steps behind. The sun was completely set, the cloudless sky black-blue and covered in stars. The stable boy came waddling. “Cook’s roasting a ham tonight, m’lord. There’s also chicken, grilled leeks, and a bacon pie. Oh! And apple tarts for something sweet, if it please m’lord, ser.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.” He thumbed him one more copper, for he had plenty, and asked him to find them someplace to sit while he went and ordered food from the innkeep. Once he was certain they were both inside, he kicked off his left boot, fishing for the bundle stuffed into the toe. Inside was wrapped a signet ring stamped with four three-headed dragons on a quartered shield, his father’s personal sigil. Then he went inside.</p>
<p>The innkeep was a short, stout man with cheeks like pease porridge and a head of straight brown hair tied back with a leather thong. His nose was covered in purple veins and had been broken several times by the crooked way it seemed to have healed, but he was friendly. He looked like the fat stable boy, who Egg thought was certainly his son. “There’re four men behind the butcher,” he said in a low voice when he’d taken the innkeep outside. “I killed them.”</p>
<p>“Gods…” muttered the innkeep, wiping both hands in his shirtfront. They were covered in thick brown hair.</p>
<p>“They were planning to rape the woman I came in with. I meant to tell the city watch, but she’s terrified, and I promised I would cause her no further harm,” Egg explained, resting a hand heavily on the man’s shoulder. “Can I trust you?”</p>
<p>He nodded, clearly not sure if he should trust a confessed killer, though far too frightened to refuse.</p>
<p>Egg opened his other hand, his father’s ring cradled in his palm. “My name is Prince Aegon Targaryen, the fourth son of Prince Maekar, nephew to King Aerys. Have you heard of me?”</p>
<p>“Of course, Your Grace,” the innkeep stammered. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I never knew…”</p>
<p>“No forgiveness necessary,” he interrupted, closing his hand once more. “You could not have known because I never wanted it known. And I’d still prefer that no one else find out that I was here. My only request is that you tell the city watch that those four men behind the butcher were criminals. Rapers. And I preserved the King’s peace by executing them, and that is that. If they need to speak with me, they can find me tomorrow at Raventree Hall. I’ll be there for Lord Blackwood’s tourney. Can you tell them?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Your Grace. Of course.” Like his son, the innkeep nodded several times, excited to be of service to a prince. “You are staying tonight, yes? I will have the best room readied, the largest room. With fresh rushes, and a fire if it please Your Grace. And food! Your Highness shall eat for free.”</p>
<p>But Egg shook his head. If someone saw that he wasn’t paying, they would become suspicious. Besides, Duncan taught him to be liberal, especially to hardworking smallfolk who had little and less than the high lords in their castles. “I’ll pay my share,” he said, “though I’m most touched by your hospitality.”</p>
<p>The innkeep’s son found them a spot near the back of the common room, near the fire. The woman sat with her shoulders curled on the bench, cradling her cup of mead mulled with cinnamon, cloves and orange. She sipped it slowly, huddled in the folds of Egg’s heavy cloak. She’d scrubbed the blood from her hands, but her hair was a mess, and her face was beginning to swell where Broken-Tooth had struck her. She still looked much better now than before.</p>
<p>He ordered for them a bowl of beef stew, a chicken with boiled potatoes, crisp roasted onions, a creamy, salted cheese with a hard, red rind, a loaf of blackened bread and a couple slices of the cook’s ham, glazed with cloves, honey and rosemary, and sat next to her on the bench, swiveling his legs beneath the scuffed table.</p>
<p>He poured a banded horn mug full of ale and drank it down in one long pull, spilling out the corners of his mouth onto the front of his tunic. He swallowed a belch and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Forgive me,” he said, “I fear I’ve been remiss.”</p>
<p>She looked up from her mead and tiled her head to one side. “How so?”</p>
<p>He poured a second cup, sipping the foam off the top. “I never asked you your name.”</p>
<p>“Oh…” She hesitated. “It’s… Uh… Beth.”</p>
<p>“Beth,” he repeated. He liked that. Beth... Short. Sweet. And easy on the tongue. “A lovely name.”</p>
<p>“Honestly?” She shook her head, her messy black curls bouncing. “I hate it. It sounds like something you’d call a cow, or a pig.”</p>
<p>Before he could stop himself, Egg laughed and coughed simultaneously, spraying a mouthful of ale across his lap and table. Beth’s face broke into an honest smile and she couldn’t help laughing too. Egg felt his chest muscles tighten. Her laugh was a pleasant sound, and welcome. And she was a beautiful woman. Egg hadn’t noticed that before. He’d been far too concerned with stopping the men raping her to notice that even spotted with bruises, hers was a comely face, with almond-shaped eyes as brown and soft as a doe’s, a button nose, and full lips, with a little mole on the right side.</p>
<p>“So… What kind of name is Egg?” she wondered once their food had come. She heaped a spoonful of stew into her mouth, starving. It was thick with carrots, parsnips, turnips and onions and salty, but warm in the belly.</p>
<p>“A chicken name?” he offered with a grin. “It’s what my brother called me when we were kids.” If nothing else, that was the truth.</p>
<p>“Do you fight with a brown egg on your shield, then? Or perhaps white? Maybe spotted?” she teased.</p>
<p>“Actually, my shield has <em>three </em>eggs on it, on a striped field of red and white.” If he <em>was </em>a hedge knight, that wouldn’t be so terrible, now that he thought about it. Perhaps he should suggest that to Duncan if he ever rode as a mystery knight. People loved mystery knights.</p>
<p>Once they’d finish their stew, they tore into the chicken. Its skin was roasted to a crisp, and crunchy, and its flesh was chewy, rubbed with rosemary, sage and salt. Beth licked between each finger, not wanting to waste even one bead of salty grease. It made her lips shimmer and Egg found himself imagining what it would be like to lean over and kiss her. Then he remembered the four men that had likely thought much of the same things, and felt wicked.</p>
<p>Beth peppered him questions – where he was born, how he’d earned his knighthood, what other tourneys had he ridden in, whether he won his tilts and, if so, against whom. He was surprised that she was so well-informed regarding tourneys and knights and House sigils (for she nodded when he named names and described shields), but she simply said that she was enamoured with adventures and songs about heroes and knights and courtly love.</p>
<p>Egg indulged her, spinning stories that were half-lies and half-truths. He told her that he was born in King’s Landing (true), but in Flea Bottom (lie), the fourth son of six children (true). His mother passed (true) but his father he’d never known (lie) and he spent the first four years running through alleys and across rooftops, catching pigeons and chasing stray dogs and picking on other children (lie), until a kindly old hedge knight happened to catch him stealing a lemon tart and took him in rather than bring him to the Watch (another lie). “His name was Ser Arlan of Pennytree,” he said and Beth’s face twitched, but perhaps he only imagined that. Egg found his stories came easier when he mixed his own history with Duncan’s. Even if she was familiar with a few of the bigger Houses, she couldn’t have heard of him. No one took much notice of hedge knights, even if they were over six feet tall, and Duncan’s past was even lesser known that his knightly feats.</p>
<p>When there was nothing of the chicken save the bones and grizzled joints, they moved onto the bread, cheese and ham. “So what about you?”</p>
<p>Beth bit into the cheese. It was a bit bitter, the rind thick and chewy, but creamy inside, and tasted better paired with a crumbly crust of bread or a piece of the ham. “What about me?”</p>
<p>“Where’d you come from? Are you a crofter’s daughter or something?”</p>
<p>“Something like that.” She swallowed and brushed crumbs off the folds of the cloak. “The truth is that I’m turning eighteen soon, and my father insists that it’s time I marry. He’s right, I know that. Most women are wed once they’ve had their first flowering. But I… I’ve only ever known my father’s house, and soon I’ll only know my husband’s. It’s not that I’d rather not marry. I would like to be someone’s wife and have his children, raise them. It’s simply that I’ve seen little of the outside world. I’ve never even left the riverlands. So I thought… for one night perhaps I could live my own life my own way.” She sighed, a ball of fluffy white bread rolling between her thumb and forefinger. “That was a foolish plan though. Look what happened. If Father was there, those bastards never would have thought to touch me that way.”</p>
<p><em>A fierce man her father must be for her to believe that</em>, Egg thought. Men of such character were known to take women in sight of their fathers, knowing there was nothing that a baker or farmer or tanner could do. And knights or lords of ill repute were hardly much better, though perhaps they’d pay the woman’s father for the trouble, like she was a whore, and for any bastard they might sire within her.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said softly. It seemed like the right thing to say, though in truth, he preferred to say that he was only sorry that he couldn’t kill those men ten times over.</p>
<p>“Thank you.” And surprising them both, she slid her hand overtop his, squeezing tightly. Beth’s touch was electric, her skin soft and starting to warm, and his breath caught in his throat.</p>
<p>“I… Uh…” He harrumphed. “It’s late… Can I walk you home? I wouldn’t feel right leaving you alone at night.”</p>
<p>“I live far from here,” she confessed. “I thought to stay the night. This place seems comfortable enough, if there’re rooms still.”</p>
<p>“You can have my room,” Egg immediately offered. “The innkeep has it ready, and I’ve slept in stables many times.”</p>
<p>“That won’t be necessary.” She chewed her bottom lip, but it must have hurt because her brow pinched and she stopped. “Perhaps we could…share the room? To be honest, I’d probably sleep better knowing my brave hedge knight was nearby.”</p>
<p>Egg’s face warmed as if with a fever. “Okay… I’ll sleep on the floor,” he insisted. Egg sent her up with another cup of the hot, spiced mead, saying he would come up after an hour had passed if she wanted a bath. He sat there, finishing his flagon while he waited.</p>
<p><em>My hedge knight</em>, she’d called him, like she was a highborn lady and he her champion. He liked that. But he wasn’t sure why. He’d never cared what women said or thought before, even if she was beautiful. He wanted a Kingsguard’s cloak, not a woman’s pretty smile. He meant to feel the cold weight of steel in his hands, not a woman’s soft, warm skin. The only kind of kiss he’d wanted was a blade’s sharp edge on his mail, or the kiss of a lance on his shield, but now the only thing he could think of was Beth’s little pink mouth, shiny and smiling.</p>
<p>He wondered if this is the way Duncan felt when he’d rescued that Dornish puppeteer, Tanselle, after Aerion broke her fingers. She was pretty too, and Egg had liked the way her puppets came to life when she twisted her wrists this way and that. He suddenly wished Duncan was there with him to help him make sense of what he was feeling.</p>
<p>The hall was beginning to empty, the patrons wandering either outside to blunder home or to their rooms upstairs. Egg tipped his neck back, dumping the last of the bitter dregs down his throat and stood, feeling light-headed. Somehow, he knew it wasn’t only the ale.</p>
<p>He paused outside the room, straining to hear sounds of sloshing water or the hollow <em>thump</em> of elbows and knees on the edge of the tub. He heard nothing but knocked to be sure. “Beth? Hello? Are you finished in there?”</p>
<p>“Egg?” her voice replied. “Yes. You can come in.”</p>
<p>Egg entered and found her sitting on the bed, mending her bodice with a needle and thread and humming. Her hair was wet from her bath, hanging in heavy ringlets round her face. He could smell faint oils over the thick, woodsy odour of the fire in the hearth: bergamot, lavender and lemon, he thought. She was still wearing his cloak, though he realized that she was wasn’t wearing anything beneath it but her smallclothes, as her shirt and skirts were laid out on the bed beside her.</p>
<p>He tried putting the thoughts from him mind as he sat on the floor in front of the fire. It was a pleasant enough evening, and he was beside the fire so he wasn’t cold even without a blanket. He carefully removed his boots so that his ring wouldn’t fall out, and opened the first two buttons of his tunic so that he might breathe easier and not risk tearing a seam while he slept. Then, he settled back, folding his hands behind his head like a pillow. He was beginning to nod off when Beth stopped humming. “Is my humming keeping you awake?”</p>
<p>“No,” he murmured, smacking his lips together. “Honestly, it was helping. Keep singing.”</p>
<p>“I’m not really a singer, but I’ll try.” And so she tried, singing softly as she sewed, something about a knight who proposed to a woman, but she said that he would have to complete several impossible tasks before she’d take him to bed. Between her singing and the crackle of the fire, soon he was asleep, dreaming of riding in Lord Blackwood’s tourney. He imagined himself in his shining black steel, knocking his last opponent into the sand. He’d no need or want of the champion’s purse, but he took the victor’s wreath, a crown of white roses. Then he searched the crowd’s faces for a fair maiden with a head of wild black curls. And when he saw her, sitting in the crowds, wearing his pin on her shoulder, he rode to her, lifted his visor and placed the crown of roses in her lap. With a kiss on her mouth, his lips brushing her little brown mole, he named her his Queen.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A bird perched in the tree outside the window and sang a pretty song from its branch when Beth woke early the following morning. It took a moment before she remembered where she was, why her room looked nothing like the way it should. But then she remembered the four men who’d cornered her last night, how they’d chased her behind the butcher, laughing and snapping their broken, sharp teeth, how they’d thrown her into the pigsty, screaming, and climbed on top of her. She remembered the one with a head of sinewy brown hair, thin but strong, pry her legs open and reach for the laces of his breeches, the bump of his arousal obvious even in the lengthening twilight. And she remembered the brave stranger with a steel sword and a funny name, and how he’d killed them and covered her nakedness with his cloak, how he’d fed her blacked bread and bitter cheese and crispy roasted chicken, and how he’d told her stories. She remembered how safe she’d felt with him, this man she’d never seen before.</p><p>Beneath the bedsheets, Egg’s hands held her firmly to his broad chest, his shoulder curled over her slightly, a shield of bone and muscle against any intruder who wished her ill. He was still well and truly asleep, his head resting on the feather-filled pillow beside her. His hair, which she’d thought was black last night, shone a faded blue in the morning sunlight. Beth had never seen a Tyroshi before, but she’d heard that they coloured their hair strange colours. She wondered if that meant that Egg was part Tyroshi. He was hiding something, of that she was certain, though what it was… She was surprised to realize that it mattered not. Even if he told her that he was a male whore or a wildling from north of the Wall, she wouldn’t care.  He’d sworn he’d hold her, keep her safe, the whole night through, and he’d kept his word.</p><p>Beth smiled and carefully cupped his cheek so not to wake him, his morning stubble coarse beneath her fingertips. She’d never slept with a man before. She never thought she would have invited Egg into her bed either, not when even the mere touch of a man had made her sick. But then she’d woken crying in the middle of the night, the sheets wet with a cold sweat, the memories of the evening twisted into terrible nightmares, nightmares in which Egg had been too late to stop them and Beth could almost feel them – their callused hands on her skin, their hot, smelly breath, their cocks thrust between her legs over and over...</p><p>Egg was beside her in moments, shaking off sleep and making sure she was okay. She’d seen the conflict in his eyes. He’d longed to comfort her, but words could only comfort so much. To truly console her, it would involve touching her, which he wasn’t so sure she wanted.</p><p>Beth had fallen into his embrace herself, burying her face in his neck and weeping as she’d never wept before. Egg made a small, strangled noise in the back of his throat and that was when he’d remembered the cut on his shoulder. He’d tried hiding it, but his muscles had tensed and his breaths were quick and shallow. He’d shrugged his tunic off the one shoulder and Beth sucked in a breath. The cut was long, ragged but shallow and hadn’t bled much, but she’d insisted on cleaning it before it festered. It was, after all, for her sake that he’d been hurt. There was a bit of water left over from her bath in a flagon on the floor near the hearth. She’d warmed it over the embers so a few minutes, then tore a piece of her skirt into three long strips. One she’d soaked in water and rubbed over the cut, scrubbing off the blood, pebbles and old scabs. When it started bleeding fresh, she’d folded the second strip into a pad and bound it to his shoulder with the third piece.</p><p>She’d helped him slip his arm into his sleeve, and buttoned his tunic back up, but noticed that her stomach tightened each time she slipped each silver star through each matching eyelet. He’d intended to return to his spot on the floor, now that her nightmares had passed, but she’d held onto his sleeve and asked him to stay with her. “I feel… safer when you are here…”</p><p>“Are you certain?” His eyes, such a warm blue they were almost purple, held hers. "The floor suits me well enough."</p><p>She’d nodded. “I'm sure. Only to sleep though. I’m sorry if it’s the other thing that you… But I’m… I’m not…”</p><p>But he’d shaken his head in response, his lips pulled back into a kind smile, and held her hand in his lap. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I want nothing of you that you are not ready to give. Though... If you'd feel more comfortable, I will stay with you, and hold you and protect you, all night if need be. I swear.”</p><p>Beth brushed a lock of stray blue hair behind his ear. She watched him sleep, wishing she’d the chance to stay with him in this bed forever. He was handsome, she thought, but that is not what she was so taken with, for she had met handsome men before. Many of them were as comely as they were cruel or selfish. Egg wasn’t like that. He lied so well she thought his tongue ought to be forked, but his behaviour, his concern for her wellbeing, shouted where his lies were only whispers.</p><p>Her vision blurred, her eyes filling with stinging tears. Egg was the kind of man she could see herself marrying, the kind of man whose children she could see herself raising. But he was a baseborn hedge knight – if that was even the truth – and Father would never permit it, no matter how valiant he was.</p><p>Beth inched closer, her body pressed tightly to his. It felt right, sleeping beside him, his hands on her back, his breath caressing her cheek each time he exhaled. Her knee twitched, and she fought the impulse to wrap her leg round his waist. Her mother once said that there was a fine line between being ready and simply wanting for something, and Beth knew that while there was a heat in her belly, stirred by the feeling of him holding her, she wasn’t ready to cross that line, not when last night was fresh in her mind. She wasn’t so young and foolish to believe she would enjoy her first time, especially if she was forced to marry some man old enough to be her mother’s father. Though neither would she pervert their coupling with memories of those four horrid peasants.</p><p>But if they were soon to part ways, she wanted more of him to remember, something to warm her on cold, lonely nights, to make her smile when she was fearful or morose. So, tilting her chin slightly, Beth pressed her lips to his softly. Egg stirred and Beth felt his lashes brush her still-wet cheeks when he opened his eyes. His fingertips pressed hard into her back when he returned the kiss.</p><p>She broke the kiss moments later, pulling back only slightly.</p><p>Grinning stupidly, Egg said, “Good morning… I think I should like to be woken like that more often.” He noticed her tears and brushed them with his thumb. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing,” she replied, but then she told him of her woes.</p><p>“The tourney is set to last several days,” Egg said, his voice little more than a whisper, “And today is only the first. I’ve nowhere to be really, and I’m in no rush to leave you.”</p><p><em>If only I might say the same…</em> she thought but only smiled half-heartedly, tucking another blue hair aside. “You’re only saying that. You have honour and glory to earn in the tourney, and a champion’s purse and ransoms besides.”</p><p>“Mere trinkets.” He shrugged and continued to caress her cheek, mindful of the bruises. “I’d much rather be here with you. Perhaps we can spend the morning together. I’ve never seen much of Fairmarket, but surely there’re things to see, ‘specially with a tourney being held only a few hours ride from here.”</p><p>She knew she shouldn’t. Father was probably sick with worry. "I shouldn't. I need to be getting home." But… She wasn’t ready to bid him farewell so soon and she nodded. “A few hours longer won't matter much."</p><p>They lay there together for some time longer, though how long they could not say. The sun was fully risen by the time they were ready to part. They kissed once more, soft and sweet, before heading into the common room to break their fast. This morning there was bacon, eggs and blackened bread with butter, honey and blueberry preserve.</p><p>With her bodice mended, it was far too warm to wear Egg’s heavy cloak over top, and she handed it back with her thanks. “Keep the broach,” he said and she was more than happy to, wearing it over her left breast, over her heart.</p><p>Fairmarket was crowded with people who’d come to hear news of the tourney or were merely passing through. Smallfolk were permitted to watch, but there was limited space so most were content to fill the neighbouring towns and villages and hear who won from those who had seen it. The crowds helped the townspeople and Fairmarket had prepared for such. The market square was full to bursting with coloured stalls and covered wagons and vendors hawking their wares. There were cries of “Dragon’s eggs from Old Valyria! Come see! Come see!” and “Sweetrolls! Have them with cinnamon, honey or sugar!” and “Wine! Wine! I’ve red and white! I’ve sour and sweet! Arbor Red! Blackberry! Dornish reds! And honeyed wines from Lannisport! Wine! Wine!” over the clanging of forging steel and blades being honed on grindstones. They passed puppet shows, fools in motley singing and dancing and juggling coloured pins, and coloured tents for people to have their fortunes told.</p><p>Beth had lost her shoes last night, so Egg purchased a pair of simple leather slippers from a clothing vendor. He’d offered to buy her something nicer, something made of softer calfskin or coloured suede inlaid with Braavosi pearls and silver thread, but she refused, saying simple slippers would be more than enough for her. She couldn’t help but wonder how he’d come into such coin, though she supposed he must’ve earned it riding in tourneys and ransoming or selling the horses, steel and swords he’d won from his opponents.</p><p>There was a stage set up in one square, and they stopped to watch a reenactment of the Blackfyre Rebellion, standing near the back. It was crowded, the people pressed tightly together, and Beth felt eyes on them. A few stares came from women, envious of the fact that Egg had his hand in hers instead of theirs, while others were from men with hunger in their eyes. Though whether for her or Egg’s purse, she couldn’t say. Either way, she stepped closer to him, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword.</p><p>The play was a comedic reenactment, it seemed, full of bawdy songs and crude impersonations of the Blackfyres, mostly, but a few of the Targaryens too. Egg tensed, his purple eyes narrowing and his nostrils flaring, when a homely woman in red robes with a blotch of paint on her pale, skeletal face proclaimed herself Lord Bloodraven in a high-pitched voice. With a child’s play bow, painted white, she shot “Daemon Blackfyre” who, in turn, cut her face with a play sword as he fell to his knees, cursing “Lord Bloodraven” for a kinslayer. “Lord Bloodraven” cackled like a crone over a bubbling cauldron, fingers steeped, and belted out a long monologue about how now <em>he </em>would rule Westeros, for King Daeron was weak and old, and he’d plans for his sons.</p><p>It was a commonly held belief that the Hand of the King, Lord Bloodraven, so called for the birthmark on his face that was said to bear the likeness of a bird, practiced black magic. That it was his shot that killed Daemon Blackfyre, his bastard brother, in the Battle of Redgrass Fields was evidence for some that he planned to take the Iron Throne by means of his position as Hand.</p><p>“How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have?” Egg muttered. “A thousand eyes and one…”</p><p>Beth cast him a queer stare. “What?”</p><p>“Nothing…”</p><p>A cast of stagehands wearing black tunics blazoned with House Targaryen’s dragon sigil came out, wheeling a new wooden backdrop and cut outs of coloured tents and lists before melting back into the curtains. A giant of a man with a barrelled chest covered in coarse hair, wearing a matted, shoulder-length blonde wig, came out from off-stage, the stage trembling beneath his thunderous footsteps. “My name’s Duncan the Tall,” he proclaimed, beating his chest with a meaty first. In one hand he held a miniature shield, crudely painted with an elm tree and a falling star. His eyes were screwed up and his voice was intentionally slurred, as if he was a simpleton. He lumbered over to “Lord Bloodraven”, his walk a heavy totter, and grinned like a drooling idiot as “Lord Bloodraven” offered him his knighthood in exchange for “slaying a dragon or two”.</p><p>When “Ser Duncan” hit the blonde pretty boy playing Prince Aerion, laughing manically, Egg’s frown fell harder and he’d clearly seen enough. “This is starting to border on treason,” he said.</p><p>Beth led him out of the crowd with a gentle tug as “Prince Aerion” squealed and called for “Duncan”’s hand and foot. Off in the corner, half-hidden behind one of the wooden bushes, “Lord Blooraven” crooned that soon the Iron Throne would be his, for four Targaryens would be slain in the trial if things went as planned.</p><p>“For one thing, Ser Duncan wasn’t a moron and had no part in Prince Baelor's death,” Egg seethed as they walked around a corner towards a street lined with food stalls. “He’s honourable… I’ve heard. The truest knight there ever was. He’d never trade his honour for his knighthood, and he only hit Prince Aerion because he was… It was Aerion’s fault what happened, not Ser Duncan’s. He hated that Baelor and the Humfreys were killed supporting him.”</p><p>“I know...” Beth didn’t know, not really. She’d heard of Ser Duncan, of course. It was hard not to hear of a man so tall, who’d ridden with Baelor Breakspear and the Laughing Storm, <em>and</em> survived against three Kingsguard in a trial by combat. Though Beth had never seen him himself, so everything she’d heard were but stories. But it seemed like the right thing to say.</p><p>“And besides, Prince Maekar never meant to… He wasn’t a kinslayer! And Lord Bloodraven was nowhere near the tourney. It was all lies.”</p><p>“It was a play. They only meant to make people laugh,” she replied, surprised that he was taking this personally.</p><p>“Well, it wasn’t funny.”</p><p>“It wasn’t. It’s over now, though. Forget it.”</p><p>But his mood had soured, and he seemed someplace else while they walked, hand-in-hand. So to cheer him, Beth suggested they try a sweetroll. They bought each flavour and shared them as they took in more sights. The buns had the effect she’d wanted, and Egg soon forgot the mummer’s play. Beth liked the powdered sugar one the best, but Egg preferred the cinnamon and returned for more. The honeyed roll was tasty, though a bit sweet for her liking, and messy.</p><p>Next, they stopped to see the dragon eggs that the merchant said were from Old Valyria. He’d supposedly bought them off some Myrish trader along with a few bolts of lace, bronze platters, paper screens and exquisitely woven carpets. The eggs were beautiful, Beth thought; a bit smaller than she was expecting though. There were five of them, nestled on velvet cushions. Each one was covered in rough scales and hard as stone. One was a burnished steel colour, each scale tipped in black. The second was a pale, pearl white. The third was blue with purple spots and the fourth was a blood red, marbled with black and silver veins. The largest of the eggs was emerald green and covered in cracks filled with gold; it reminded Beth of a bowl she’d once seen that came from Yi Ti. When a bowl or a cup or a plate broke, instead of throwing it out, the YiTish filled the cracks with an epoxy of powdered gold or silver and celebrated it as a part of the object’s past.</p><p>The merchant offered to sell them an egg for a modest price, which, after Beth heard the number, seemed anything but modest. Egg conceded that they were beautiful, but politely refused and they walked away before he offered them a lower, but no less egregious, price.</p><p>“They’re only painted stones,” Egg said when they were far enough that the merchant wouldn’t hear them. “Beautiful but worthless.”</p><p>“You can tell?”</p><p>Egg nodded. “I’ve seen dragon eggs, held them. It’s like…You can feel that they were alive once and could be someday, even if they’re only stone now. That sounds strange, I know. But it’s true. But those were only pretty rocks.”</p><p>“I should like to see one someday,” Beth said. “An egg, I mean. Not a dragon, although a dragon would be incredible to see too.”</p><p>A cloud passed overhead, casting everything in shadow. The morning was hot, though not terribly, and any clouds had only been the thin, wispy kind. These were darker, heavier, and appeared as if from nowhere. No one else seemed to notice, or if they noticed, they weren’t concerned. Some of the merchants threw open their canopies, or tucked fabrics further in the back of their stalls to protect them from the rain, should it start. But otherwise, the crowds milled about, heedless.</p><p>They passed a pillory and scaffold, normally reserved to try criminals that today acted as a stage. A band of musicians wearing colourful costumes made of silk, all belts and buckles and feathers and ribbons, played sprightly tunes for the crowd’s pleasure. There were bone flutes, drums in several sizes, hurdy-gurdies and lutes, panpipes and tambourines and violins. When Beth saw that there were clusters of people dancing in front of the pillory, she tapped Egg’s shoulder. “C’mon! Let’s dance!”</p><p>Egg’s eyes went wide. “No thank you. I’m not a dancer.”</p><p>“I’m sure that’s a lie,” Beth replied.</p><p>“No, really,” he insisted, making a break for one of the side streets. “I’ve no rhythm and two left feet. I swear!”</p><p>Beth pulled on the back of his collar, dragging him through the crowd of spectators, “Then you are in luck: I’ve two right feet. So we even out.”</p><p>“<em>Tresy hen iā aspo</em>,” Egg mumbled in a foreign tongue.</p><p>He begrudgingly followed her into the open square and placed a hand on her hip. In his other, he cradled her fingers, his elbow raised. She watched how the others were moving their feet, then fell into step on the beat. Despite his complaints, Egg’s footwork was polished and swift, and he immediately took the lead. The dance was a common one, with a pattern of only eight simple steps that repeated themselves as long as the music permitted. He occasionally spun her in time to land smoothly into the next step, her skirts and black hair swirling.</p><p>The musicians slid into the next song without a moment’s pause, and they danced that one too, and a third. By the last notes, high and trill, Egg was beaming. Beth collapsed into his arms, breathless, her legs blissfully numb. She expected she’d have more than a few blisters come morning, but she was far too happy to care.</p><p>He kissed the top of her head lovingly, his nose buried in her nest of raven curls. She looked up and cupped his face in her hands. He searched her eyes for consent and found it in the way she tilted her chin slightly and closed her eyes. He pressed his mouth firmly to hers, sucking lightly on her bottom lip. Her mind spun as she sunk into the kiss, parting her lips and feeling his tongue, warm and wet and honey sweet, against hers. <em>This… This is what I want…</em>He <em>is what I want…</em></p><p>Beth knew that the Old Gods were cruel and only too soon, the sky turned black, the winds blustery. Cold, fat raindrops fell onto their heads like icy stones and he reluctantly broke the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers. He ran his thumbs over the curve of her jaw and neck, sending a shiver thrilling down her spine. “It’s starting to rain. We have to go now…”</p><p>So they returned to the Black Cauldron, hand-in-hand, taking the longer route to postpone the inevitable, if only a little longer.</p><p>The inn’s lights came into view when they turned another corner and Egg froze in his tracks, his face paling and eyes growing wide. “Oh shit…”</p><p>Leaning on one of the fences surrounding the inn’s stables, arms folded over a broad chest and legs as thick as tree trunks crossed over the knees, was a comely man near seven feet tall, his sandy blonde hair pulled back into a messy topknot, tousled by the wind. He wore a sunset orange jerkin with red sleeves and an elm tree emblazoned on the breast. Over one shoulder, a cloth-of-gold cape hung, clasped with a broach fashioned into a falling star in silver. </p><p>Beth knew immediately that <em>that </em>was Ser Duncan the Tall, not that bumbling idiot in the mummer’s play.</p><p>Ser Duncan seemed to be waiting for them, his lips a thin line, looking none too pleased when his stare fell onto Egg’s milk-white face. He pushed himself off the fence with his toe and closed the space between them in only a few long strides. Gods he was big, she thought, and no small wonder Egg had started to tremble. She would be trembling beneath that man’s shadow too, but fortunately, his ire was focused on Egg. “I ought to beat you bloody, you damned fool! I’ve been looking <em>everywhere</em> for you!”</p><p>"You couldn't have looked <em>everywhere - </em>"</p><p>"No! Don't even start!" he roared.</p><p>Egg had the grace to blush, his throat closing up. He looked a child, caught with his sticky fingers in an apple pie. “I… I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I only…”</p><p>Duncan threw his massive arms around Egg’s shoulder and held him tightly. “Have you any idea how worried I’ve been?” he breathed into the boy’s neck and Beth would have thought they were brothers if she hadn’t known better. “I wasn’t sure where you’d gone or when you’d come back – <em>if</em> you’d come back.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Egg said again, and he released Beth’s hand to return the embrace. “I never meant to worry you. I just wanted some time alone.”</p><p>“Alone is it?” Duncan looked at Beth curiously, his brown eyes noting her windblown black curls, black and blue bruised cheek, cracked lip and filthy, shredded skirts. “And who are you?”</p><p>“Beth, if it please ser,” she answered, remembering to be courteous. He was a knight, after all. “Egg saved me.”</p><p>She thought he would be surprised, but he only nodded. “So I’ve heard.”</p><p>She cast Egg a confused look but he refused to meet her eyes. “I had to tell the innkeep. Last night, when I said that I was ordering our food, I first told him what had happened. I was afraid that if the city watch found the bodies first, they’d have to come for us. Confessing seemed the better option. I never told you because you seemed so scared when I suggested we tell them, and I didn’t want to upset you.”</p><p>Beth wanted to be mad, to curse him for lying and betraying her trust. But she knew that he was in the right. She was being selfish, begging him not to tell, when it was his life that would’ve been on the line should the Watch have stumbled on the bodies by chance. It would have looked like murder and they would certainly have hanged him, even though he’d only killed them to protect her honour.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said.</p><p>But she shook her head and kissed the corner of his mouth. “You did the right thing.”</p><p>He brushed his lips over her lips, nose and forehead, but then he seemed to remember the knight standing nearby. “Now what happens?” he asked Duncan who was watching with a concerned furrow of his brow.</p><p>“We must needs return to the tourney grounds. The contests have been delayed a day, as Lady Blackwood has taken ill. Lord Blackwood has said it’s nothing serious, but he thinks we can start on the morrow, once she is well and can choose her champions.” To Beth, he asked where she was from. “We can escort you as far as Raventree Hall.”</p><p>“That is plenty far, ser, thank you,” Beth replied, a bit nervously. “That’s the way I need to travel. I’m sure there will be merchants or mummers that can take me the rest of the way.”</p><p>“Very well.” Duncan mounted his horse and Egg followed on a black destrier. Beth rode with him, though there wasn’t enough room in the saddle so she was forced onto the beast’s bare rump. Beth clung tightly to Egg’s waist and pressed her cheek to his shoulder, terrified that she would fall off. But the horse seemed to sense her panic and walked with a firmer step.</p><p>“I’m sorry I lied,” Egg shouted over the wind after some time had passed. The rain started in earnest, so he offered her his cloak to keep off the worst of the water. “About everything, I mean. I’m not a knight. I’m only Duncan’s squire. Well…I was.”</p><p>“I kind of suspected,” Beth replied, her mouth close to his ear. “It’s okay though.” <em>I’ve not been completely honest either…</em></p><p>“I should have told you. I just… We barely knew each other. But I care for you, Beth,” he said. “You deserve to know the truth.”</p><p>Beth nuzzled his neck, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feeling of him in her arms, his strength and warmth. “Don’t tell me. This morning was wonderful, and I’ll never forget it. But I’d rather remember you as Egg: my brave knight, not Ser Duncan’s squire or whatever else you are.” <em>For now, and for a little while longer, you are mine and I am yours…</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Because of the rain, the lists were wet and mucky the following morning. Divots in the field filled with murky rainwater, creating hazardous puddles for the horses, though there was no room for further suspensions. The Blackwoods’ visitants had traveled far to exhibit their skill with lance and sword, and some sought even to earn Lady Blackwood’s hand in marriage, and had waited enough when she’d taken ill. They’d not waste more of their time waiting out the rain too.</p>
<p>After breaking their fast on a light meal of boiled eggs, bread and sharp, white cheese, washed down with a cup of nettle tea, Egg helped Duncan into his mail and plate, falling into a familiar pattern of tying belts, fastening snaps and hooking hooks. Soon, Duncan would have to find himself a new squire, and Egg would need one himself. His father would likely recommend someone, a cousin or nephew or perhaps a ward from House Baratheon or Lannister or Tyrell. But for now, he’d settle for whichever boy was free when his tilt came up.</p>
<p>Duncan knelt on the carpet inside his pavilion while Egg stood on a short stool behind him. He wrapped Duncan’s gorget around his neck and expertly threaded each string through its matching eyelet, pulling them tight and knotting them thrice so there were no spaces between it and the top of the cuirass where a lance might catch. “Can I ask you a personal question?”</p>
<p>“I suspect you’ll ask even if I say no,” replied Duncan, leaning forward slightly so the tiny hairs on the back of his neck wouldn’t catch in the clasps. “So, yes. Ask away.”</p>
<p>Egg hesitated a moment, worrying his lip. “What is it like . . . laying with a woman? I know the basic concept – where everything goes, I mean. But what is it <em>like</em>?”</p>
<p>Duncan glanced over his shoulder and Egg grinned sheepishly. He stepped off the stool to fetch his curved helm. After eight years and countless fights and even more tilts and melees, the helm that Duncan purchased off Steely Pate was battered and broken beyond repair, so he’d replaced it, though he’d never been one for needless ornamentation like other knights. Decoration offered more places for the edge of blades to catch so this helm was as plain as his old one, rounded to turn blows.</p>
<p>“Since when are you interested in that?”</p>
<p>“I’m only curious,” Egg lied, climbing onto the stool to lower the helm over Duncan’s head.</p>
<p>“I know when you are lying, and you are lying now,” he replied, his voice echoing inside the helm. “It’s because of that common girl, isn’t it? Beth.”</p>
<p>Egg pressed his thumb to each of the metal studs peppering the edge of Duncan’s helm until he heard them click, securing the helmet into place. “Maybe.”</p>
<p>“Then nothing really happened the night you spent together?” Of that, he was thankful. They had troubles enough with Aegon IV’s illegitimate-legitimate sons; Westeros needed no more Targaryen bastards running amok.</p>
<p>“I said so last night,” Egg replied, bristling. He knew that Duncan had reason to be suspicious; he was a known liar and could not help twisting the truth and exploiting loopholes when it suited him. Still . . . Did he have to be <em>so </em>surprised? “Besides, I wouldn't ask if I knew.”</p>
<p>Duncan stood, his knees popping in protest. “You’re a prince, and she’s a commoner,” he reminded him when Egg slipped on the first of his gauntlets. It was an articulated glove with each finger separate and form-fitted for a better, firmer grip. “Besides, you’re already betrothed to Daella.”</p>
<p>Egg made a face. “I refuse to marry my sister. Even if it is tradition, it’s sickening. The common people believe that the gods have cursed us and I’m not so sure that they’re wrong. Elsewise, why are so many Targaryens mad?”</p>
<p>“Not every Targaryen born of incest is mad,” Duncan said, turning his wrist over so that Egg could tie it tight. “And not every madman was born of incest. Though, you are wise not to continue the tradition. But even still, you cannot marry a commoner nor make one your mistress. There is no place for one so baseborn in the bed of a prince. You’d bring her nothing but pain in pretending otherwise. Believe me. Best forget her.”</p>
<p>Egg knew that Duncan was speaking from his own personal experience. He’d once cared for Lady Rohanne Webber, the Red Widow. But he’d been only a bastard-born hedge knight from King’s Landing back then and she’d needed to marry someone by the next turn of the moon or she would forfeit her rights to her lands. So instead she’d married Ser Eustace of House Osgrey, and Gerold Lannister once Ser Eustaces passed. She’d told Duncan, in passing, that had he been better born she would have married him, implying that perhaps she’d cared for him the way Duncan had cared for her. But Egg suspected that had stung ever more. The last they’d heard, she’d born Lord Gerold twin sons, Tion and Tywald. He remembered his friend drinking himself under a table the night they’d heard the news.</p>
<p>Of course, Duncan was right. Still, Egg couldn’t stop thinking about Beth. He’d dreamt of her last night, but his thoughts were far less innocent than when he’d imagined himself naming her his Queen of Love and Beauty the night they met. This time, he’d imagined riding with her through fields and forests and hills, feeling her arms around his waist as he spurred Balerion faster. Next – for his thoughts changed swiftly, the way they oft would in sleep – they were sitting together on the bank of a lake, surrounded by coloured flowers, elm trees hanging overhead, their branches faintly swaying. There they’d shared sweetrolls, the same way they had in life, only when Beth offered him a bit of hers, her honeyed fingers touched his lips and he caught her before she could pull back, licking the heavenly nectar off each finger. He brushed his lips over the soft spot on the inside of her wrist and forearm, moving up her shoulder and finally capturing her lips. He kissed her long and hard.</p>
<p>Then Beth had leaned back, pulling him on top, her knees pressing firmly into his hips. He’d lifted her skirts over her milky-white thighs and found she was wearing no smallclothes beneath. Only her, the nest of black curls that matched the hair on her lovely head, and her netherlips, pink and wet. She’d spread her legs further in silent welcome and he’d entered her eagerly. He’d rocked his hips slowly, then with increasing speed, instinct taking over. She’d moaned with each thrust, fingers pressing hard into his shoulders, and finally cried his name as blinding heat erupted inside him. With a breathless wheeze, he woke and found himself stiff as steel and his sheets wet.</p>
<p>But he’d not tell Duncan that part, though he knew that there was nothing to be embarrassed of. He’d woken like that before, several times, and Duncan said that was a natural part of becoming a man, but never when he’d remembered what happened, nor envisioned someone specifically. Before, she had never had a face, only a blurred shadow where her eyes and nose and mouth were supposed to be, and his memories faded in the first rays of morning sunlight. Last night stayed with him. It had taken a sluice of rainwater, cold enough to make his teeth chatter in his skull, and a number of hard strokes to force himself to soften.</p>
<p>The thoughts threatened to bring his arousal back, and Egg focused instead on fastening the last pieces of Duncan’s plate. He was binding Duncan’s sunset cloak to his shoulders when a man wearing Lord Blackwood’s colours came in from the rain, shaking water onto the carpets. “Ser Duncan the Tall?”</p>
<p>“Aye,” Duncan replied, and Egg stifled the impulse to say something impudent like “No, he’s Ser Duncan the Dwarf.”</p>
<p>The man regarded Egg with a bow. “Your Grace, I should’ve acknowledged you first. Pray, forgive me.”</p>
<p>Egg shrugged. He’d washed out the blue dye, his hair now shining silver and gold, and dressed in the clothes he’d laid out two evenings passed. But he was only the fourth son of the fourth son of the former King, and small compared to Duncan. He was accustomed to being overlooked.</p>
<p>The man proffered a braid of black and red silk, festooned with a black feather on the end. “Lady Blackwood has named Ser Duncan the Tall her tourney champion and offers him this favour to wear for luck and fortune in the lists.”</p>
<p>The Blackwood messenger excused himself, raising his hood when he stepped back out into the rain.</p>
<p>“Why would Lady Blackwood choose <em>you</em>?” Egg wondered, wrapping her ribbon round Duncan’s rerebrace. He knotted it tightly so that it wouldn’t come off in the wind and rain.</p>
<p>“Clearly my reputation has preceded me,” the knight replied. Although Egg couldn’t see his smug face, he could hear his smirk in his voice. It was no small thing to be named champion, though it was possible that Duncan was merely one of several.</p>
<p>The rain was even harder that morning than last night, but the lists were filled with both highborn and smallfolk. Egg followed Duncan, leading Storm by his reins, and helped him mount, sliding each foot into each stirrup and checking one last time that there were no chinks in his plate.  A canopied gallery offered the Blackwoods and a number of other highlords the best view. In the middle seat was Lord Blackwood himself, a man of near forty with broad shoulders and a close-cropped black beard peppered white. On his left side, between Lords Blackwood and Tully, was an empty high-backed chair with a black cushion reserved for Prince Aegon, but Egg preferred to watch from the ends of the lists, where he could hand Duncan lances when his shattered, or reign in the horses once their rider was lost, rather than make small talk with a bunch of strangers.</p>
<p>To Lord Blackwood’s right, in the position of highest honour, sat Lady Blackwood, looking sullen, with a braid hanging over one shoulder, a crimson ribbon woven amidst the wild black curls. She wore a fitted gown: black trimmed in silver, with belled sleeves and cinched round her waist with a silver belt inlaid with red spinel cut into squares. Overtop, she wore a cloak embellished with black raven feathers, pinned to her neck with a broach of polished obsidian in the delicate shape of a dragonfly . . . </p>
<p>“Seven hells,” muttered Duncan, recognizing the fair maiden, “that’s – ”</p>
<p>“Beth,” Egg finished, his mouth falling open.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Betha Blackwood sat beside her lord father, fingering the crimson ribbon woven into her braid. She wasn’t really watching the tourney. Everything – the sights, smells and sounds – all blended together into noise. Rain trickled off the edge of the canopy, forming little waterfalls in the corners, while far off somewhere, a peal of thunder followed the brief flash of lightning. She wasn’t so sure that knights should be riding in this, in their metal plate, but when she’d suggested calling the tourney off, her father refused to hear it. He was wroth enough from her leaving, so Betha chose not to press the issue.</p>
<p>Last evening, she had Ser Duncan and Egg ride with her to where the tourney grounds started and claimed she would find someone to bring her home. She had only half-lied. She couldn’t tell them who really was. It was not that they were not trustworthy. Egg had saved her life, and clearly cared for her as fiercely as she cared for him, and Ser Duncan was an honest knight, but she’d been lying for so long that to tell them the truth now would only sour Egg’s memories of her.</p>
<p>She bid them farewell, kissing Egg one last time, and found her father’s guards to bring her home. Mother wept when she walked into the Great Hall of Raventree, thanking the Old Gods and New that she wasn’t harmed, though noting the filthy skirts and bruises on her face. Father was enraged, saying that he’d sent half his men out searching for her, and had to claim she’d fallen ill to avoid scandal. She’d been sent to her rooms, supervised like she was a hostage rather than the Lord’s only daughter, though Betha hadn’t really cared. She was not of a mood to speak with anyone, not even her handmaids, who’d been her constant companions since childhood, nor Mother.</p>
<p>A bath scented with oils was brought in and Betha had stripped off the peasant skirts she’d stolen from one of scullions, and climbed into the hot water. It was nice to wash her skin, but there was a part of her that felt like she was washing clean the last two evenings from her life, and it left her sad.</p>
<p>After supper, a cold meal of hen roasted in giblet gravy and boiled root vegetables, none of which seemed to have much flavour, she crawled into bed, sinking into the feather mattress, and fell into a restless sleep. There was far too much space, she’d thought, rolling side to side to find the best position. But even if she closed her eyes ten-thousand times, and rolled over twice as many, Egg wouldn’t be there beside her when Betha opened them again.</p>
<p>She was being childish, she knew, lamenting like she was fair Jonquil and Egg was her own Florian. She was Betha Blackwood, and now that she’d turned eighteen, her father would betroth her to a Darry or a Frey or a Mallister, or perhaps a Tully if she was fortunate.</p>
<p>Lord Blackwood leaned over slightly, speaking so that the high lords wouldn’t hear. His breath smelled of Arbor Red and honeyed sweets from the other side of the Narrow Sea; expensive presents from one lord or other to try and charm her father into favouring him for her betrothal. “Don’t look so miserable. These men ride for you. At least pretend to be happy.”</p>
<p><em>No, they only ride for themselves</em>, she thought, but sat straighter and forced herself to smile. Most of them could not care less that this tourney was being held in her honour. They only wanted fame, fortune, for the minstrels to compose songs of their victories, or to win her like she was a prized horse. An exquisite mare to ride whenever it pleased them.</p>
<p>“Will the Dragon Prince be joining us?” asked Lord Tully, as an elderly septon stepped onto the field to bless House Blackwood and all the high lords of the riverlands. Then, a crystal raised high over his head, he blessed King Aerys and all the Dragon Lords and Ladies of House Targaryen.</p>
<p>Indeed, the chair on Father’s other side was empty. There was no sign of Prince Aegon, who had come on behalf of his lord father, Prince Maekar. She’d heard that of the Prince’s sons, Aegon’s company was most preferred. Daeron, the eldest, was far too fond of whores and wine, his breath reeking while he slurred his senseless words. Aerion was a cruel man only recently returned from the Free Cities, who caused trouble wherever he went, and Aemon, although eloquent and prudent, was a maester of the Citadel, seldom known to leave Oldtown.</p>
<p>“Of that I’m not sure,” Father replied.</p>
<p>Lord Mallister chewed on an olive thoughtfully and spat a pit over the balustrade. “He wasn’t at supper last night, either. Not that I saw. Perhaps the Blood of the Dragon prefers not to break bread with fish and ravens.”</p>
<p>Finished his prayers, the old septon stepped off the field. The first riders trotted out, there lances pointed skywards. Opposing Ser Brynden Darry, a newly-made knight, was Betha’s champion, Ser Duncan, resplendid on his brown and white courser, his sunset cloak draped over the warhorse’s orange and yellow barding. Father insisted Betha choose a champion, two or three if possible. She knew not these men, nor cared to know them, but since squires could not ride, and Egg had confessed that he wasn’t a knight after all, Ser Duncan was as close as she would come.</p>
<p>It was almost amusing, seeing such a difference in size between Ser Brynden Darry and Ser Duncan. She thought to watch Darry tumble from his seat on the first pass, but both men shattered their lances on each other’s shields, teetered, but held their seats. They took four more passes before Ser Duncan’s point hit home with a crack. Darry flew from his seat, head over heels, hitting the wet mud with a clatter like old pots. The crowd cheered, clapping and hollering as Darry was helped off the field. Ser Duncan rode towards them, tipping his lance to Betha. His helm was one piece, so he could not raise his visor, but she could feel his stare, full of recognition and scorn. She’d seen the love Ser Duncan had for his former squire, and she could not fault him being cross. Perhaps he thought her wicked, playing pretend with Egg’s heart while knowing well even if they met once more, she could never be his.</p>
<p>“A fine tilt!” Father said, clapping vehemently.</p>
<p>“It seems the Prince has taken a chill, or so his man claims,” said Lord Frey of the Crossing.</p>
<p>“Dragons take chills?” inquired Lord Tully, honestly surprised. The next pair of riders came out onto the field. A knight bearing the nude woman of Pinkmaiden, and a sigil Betha had never seen before.</p>
<p>Lord Mallister harrumphed. “Which man said this? I think it was an excuse. I’ve heard the boy’s half-wild, having lived among smallfolk for near on ten years. Apparently he prefers them to highborn lords.”</p>
<p>“A rumour,” Lord Frey replied. “And even if true, I wouldn’t let Prince Aegon hear you say that. He’s no ‘boy’. He’s the blood of Old Valyria.”</p>
<p>“Even if he heard,” Lord Blackwood said, biting into another honeyed treat full of crushed pistachios, “he’s not Aerion, nor Lord Bloodraven. He’d likely find it comical, to be named half-wild. Did you know that he once shaved his head? When he was a child, I mean. They said that he was as bald as an egg at Ashford Meadow, back when Baelor Breakspear died. I was not there, though a cousin of mine was.”</p>
<p>Betha perked up slightly when Father said "egg", though they were not talking about <em>her</em> Egg, of course.</p>
<p>“Such a shame that was,” Lord Tully said with a sad shake of his head. “Prince Baelor was a strong and wise Hand. I should think he would have made an even better king, had he lived.”</p>
<p>The conversation turned to court politics and Betha lost interest. She was not that interested in the tilts either, though occasionally she scanned the faces of the crowd, hoping to fall on a handsome man with blue hair and eyes like alexandrite. But she found nothing but black and blond and brown-haired smallfolk wearing cloaks and hoods of roughspun wool.</p>
<p>Over the next several hours, knights rode, splintering lances, sending the crowd into a frenzy, while cupbearers and squires brought plates of salted cheeses, fresh fruit, and wine into the canopied gallery. She nibbled on a cube of sharp cheese, idly stroking the broach clasped to her throat with a finger.</p>
<p>Still there was no sign of Prince Aegon. But perhaps that was for the best. The high lords were considerably older, married (some of them two or three times), content not to notice her. It meant she was free to ignore them too. But Father said that the Prince was eighteen, only a few months her senior, and she feared she would be forced to converse with him if he showed. She was in no mood to make small talk, but even she was not so bold to ignore the blood of Aegon the Conqueror. </p>
<p>Lord Blackwood decided to send someone to find out what had happened to His Royal Highness, to ensure that he was well, when a passing squire said that the Prince was set to ride the next tilt against a knight from Goldengrove.</p>
<p>“He rides in tourneys?” Lord Mallister, who seemed to have little respect for Prince Aegon, laughed. “I knew he wasn’t ill. It was an excuse. The Dragon thinks he’s too important to keep our company, yet he rides with fledging knights and giants.”</p>
<p>“And why not? Plenty of princes have ridden in tilts before. They have the right to showcase their prowess, same as every other man,” said Lord Blackwood, tempering Lord Mallister’s words. Aegon might not be his brothers, less prone to settling slights with blood, but it was no small thing to insult kin of the King. </p>
<p>A black horse came cantering through the crowd, followed by a banner bearing four of the Targaryens’ three-headed dragons on a field of black. The personal sigil of Prince Maekar. The man seated on the horse, who could only be Prince Aegon himself, was wearing black plate, polished to a shine and faintly marbled with red veins. It was beaten into a pattern that resembled scales and bore spines on his shoulders and helm. On his knees and elbows stretched metal wings and atop his helm sprouted four horns on either side, his visor a maw of black teeth. A blood red cloak hung from his shoulder and fell over his stallion’s backside, edged in black writing Father said was High Valyrian. No one could read what it said, but Father claimed it was a prayer to the Warrior for strength and valour.</p>
<p>He spurred his horse and stopped beneath the canopied gallery beside the knight from Goldengrove. His helm’s fearsome ornamentation concealed his face, though he made no move to raise the visor. “Forgive me, my lords, for my absence,” he said. Although Betha was certain she had never met him, his muffled voice was familiar somehow. Deeper than it out to be, though she wasn't sure why she thought that. Yet familiar. “You have named me your honoured guest and I fear I’ve offended you. But I was elsewhere engaged, fetching a most special gift to honour the fair Lady Blackwood on her nameday. I spent the better part of the morn searching for it.”</p>
<p>The Prince produced a bundle of red silk wrapped and held shut with a hairpin bearing the three-headed dragon of his House in silver. “If it please, my lady, I would be honoured if you’d accept this small token.”</p>
<p>Betha leaned out over the balustrade, her sleeve soaked through in moments. Their fingers touched, hers naked, his clad in steel, as he passed her the bundle. Everyone’s eyes were focused on her when she took her seat, watching as she set the bundle in her lap, carefully removed the hairpin, and revealed a sweetroll covered in powdered sugar nestled within.</p>
<p>“And . . . there is one other thing,” he said, lifting the visor with a faint shriek of rubbing metal. She looked up, her vision blurring with hot tears. It wasn’t ladylike to weep in public, but she made no move to stop them. For there he was, seated tall on the back of Balerion, so named to honour the mount of his forbearers: her true champion, her beloved Egg. “My Lord Blackwood, I, Prince Aegon of House Targaryen, would ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A mighty peal of thunder cracked outside, making the torches and hearths shudder. Logs shifted and fell, spitting embers into the chimneys and evening sky beyond. The tourney had concluded for the day and Lord Blackwood feasted the high lords of the riverlands in the Great Hall of Raventree, with a special spot on his right side for Prince Aegon. Betha sat beside him, though her proper place was beside her father, on the left. Lord Blackwood could see, however, that her morning’s pout had swiftly turned into a smile when Aegon had presented her with a sweetroll – the meaning of which Blackwood could not begin to comprehend – and asked for her hand, that he could not refuse her when she’d taken her seat. The Lords Frey, Mallister, Piper, Smallwood and Tully joined them at the high table, as did Aegon’s trusted knight, Ser Duncan.</p>
<p>The Prince’s proposal on the field shocked the crowd into silence, the high lords and the smallfolk. Then, slowly, the men started to cheer and hoot and the women cried, like they were watching a ballad play out before them. Betha longed to leap over the balustrade into his open arms, but instead conceded herself to cast her father a curious stare. What would he say? Betrothals were supposed to be planned in private, and made based on what would benefit one’s House most. He may have made an agreement already, . and meant only to wait for the tourney to conclude to broadcast it. It would be shameful to break his word. Worse, it might cause conflict between them and whomever he'd selected. But how could he refuse a prince?</p>
<p>Instead of responding, however, Lord Blackwood said only that he’d need time and, of course, to consult with Aegon’s father, Prince Maekar, to ensure that Aegon himself wasn’t breaking off a prior betrothal for her. That seemed to satisfy the Prince for the time being. The tourney continued, with Aegon spurring Balerion to one side of the lists. There, she watched Duncan stand beside him, only slightly shorter than Aegon mounted, and said something to him while he tied Betha’s favour round Aegon’s arm instead. The Prince simply smiled and lowered his visor into place.</p>
<p>Duncan handed him his lance – a spear twelve feet long with a rounded tip crafted into a black fist – and stepped back beside the other squires and knights. A trumpet signaled the riders to begin. Egg touched Balerion’s flank with his heel, spurring him into a canter, then a gallop. The <em>crack</em> of lances shattering on shields was like thunder tearing the heavens open. Betha’s heart skipped when Egg lost his balance, leaning heavily to one side. <em>He will fall!</em> she thought, but he clenched his thighs tight and held on, and when he paused to change lances, he’d met her eyes from the other side of the lists. She smiled and blew him a kiss. That seemed to embolden him, for the next two passes were his, the Goldengrove knight struggling to hang on, finally losing his seat on the third.</p>
<p>With his hair now shining like liquid silver in the Great Hall’s light, Betha could not see how she had not recognized his purple eyes for what they were. Dragon eyes. How she’d not noticed that his sharp features – his chin and jaw and nose – were like those in the paintings and tapestries of the Dragon Kings who’d come before him. Sitting beside her, she thought that, with a black circlet nestled on his pale brow, inlaid with oval rubies, he would look the Conqueror reborn.</p>
<p>Beneath the tabletop, where none of the lords would see them, Betha reached for his hand, holding it in her lap. Lord Blackwood had not committed to a betrothal, and even if he had, they were not wed; it wouldn’t be proper to hold each other’s hands or kiss or sit so close together in sight of the high lords. But, without ever taking his eyes off her father, or breaking their conversation, he squeezed her hand tightly, and that was almost as good as a long, hard kiss.</p>
<p>Duncan, for his part, was far more pleasant, now that their lies were revealed.  She spent most of the feast speaking to him, learning of the various places that they’d traveled, and of what he'd seen when he was a squire himself. Most of the stories that Aegon had told her the night they met, she learned, were, in truth, Duncan’s tales. <em>He</em> was a baseborn bastard born in Flea Bottom, who’d been taken in by kindly Ser Arlan instead of being handed over to the city watch for thievery. For some reason, the knight saw something special in him, he’d said, though he was not sure what. Since then, he’s lived to be the truest knight there ever was, as best he could.</p>
<p>“Yours is quite a special tale,” Betha said. “Worthy of song, I imagine. You are a testament to what a bit of faith might sew.”</p>
<p>“You flatter me, my lady,” the former hedge knight replied, finishing his plate of venison stakes wrapped in bacon. “I was fortunate that it was only Ser Arlan who found me. Elsewise, faith or no, I may not have become the man that I am.”</p>
<p>“Nor would Aegon,” she added, biting a cube of steak from the end of her knife. “He said he was your squire?”</p>
<p>“That he was. As good a squire as any knight could hope for. He tested my patience from time to time, to be sure. Though, what boy never tests a man’s patience?”</p>
<p>Betha laughed and decided that she would love Ser Duncan too, for it was he who raised Aegon, made him the man that he is, the same way his Ser Arlan made him. A better man than he would have been beneath his own father’s roof. And for that, she thanked the gods.</p>
<p>“What do you suppose your father will say? Will he let us wed?” Aegon asked after they left the Great Hall. The food had been cleared but the Hall was still thrumming with laughter and music and happy shouting. And Betha was exhausted, the excitement of the last three evenings finally hitting her. The heavy smoke made her eyes sting, so once the butter tarts were finished, nothing but crumbs on her plate, she excused herself for the night.</p>
<p>Aegon offered to walk her to her rooms, though Lord Blackwood insisted Ser Duncan join them, as well as Betha’s handmaidens. He was not so foolish not to see that they were especially fond of each other, though Betha had never told her parents of what had happened in Fairmarket. Nor would she. Should they ever wonder how she’d come to love the Prince, she would make something up about songs and stories and falling for him from afar.</p>
<p>“Honestly, I’m not sure. He would be fool to refuse you,” Betha replied. They walked close together, like they had in Fairmarket, though this time there were no secrets between them. “He can make no finer match than with a prince, even if you are not in line to sit the Iron Throne.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t be so concerned with Lord Blackwood’s reply,” Duncan said, a few steps behind. His sword rattled with each step and ahead, Betha could hear her handmaidens whispering. Likely they found the knight quite a handsome sight, and would be whispering into their pillows tonight. “It’s Prince Maekar that I would find the harder man to convince. The match would benefit House Blackwood immensely. Less so for House Targaryen.”</p>
<p>Aegon hadn’t thought of that, though he’d written his father that morning, once he’d learned who Betha truly was. In the past, whenever a Targaryen married outside the family, they most oft married Hightowers or Valaryons. Several times an Arryn, Baratheon, or Martell, and a there’d been a Costayne, Dayne (his own lady mother), Penrose and Westerling. A Blackwood had become King Aegon IV’s mistress, and mother to three of the King's bastard children, including Lord Bloodraven, but never a wife.</p>
<p>“Father let me squire for you,” Aegon said to Duncan. “I’m sure he will not see the harm in marrying a Blackwood, especially for love.”</p>
<p>Betha’s handmaidens let out a faint sigh at that and she hushed them with a hiss.</p>
<p>“Prince Maekar saw the benefit of squiring for me, it’s true. He recognized that I was a man of honour, though a hedge knight,” Duncan granted with a shrug. “He’d seen how living in palaces soaked in wine and riches and having never known struggle, having never seen the world, had turned your brothers into what they were, and he knew that a life with me might make you a different man than they.”</p>
<p><em>And he was right</em>, Betha thought, giving Aegon’s arm a squeeze. He smiled at her and brushed his lips on the top of her head, taking in the perfumed scent of her hair. It was an innocent kiss, less likely to cause scandal than to cause her handmaiden’s hearts to burst.</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” continued Duncan thoughtfully, “he may see the benefit in his son marrying for love, too. Any man can learn to love his wife, or a woman her husband, if he is not cruel. Marriage born of love . . . that is something that only the common folk know more of than the highborn.”</p>
<p>They reached the foot of the stairs that led to Betha’s rooms, a bit sooner than she would have liked. Duncan hung back, close enough to be of a presence, but far enough that they had some privacy, while her handmaiden’s waited a short ways above on the narrow stairs, whispering behind their hands.</p>
<p>Betha stood on the stairs, two steps higher so that she stood face to face with him, instead of having to look up. “Good night, my prince,” Betha said, and brushed a hair behind his ear. In the firelight it shone orange and red and yellow all at once.</p>
<p>“<em>S</em><em>ȳ</em><em>z bantis</em>, <em>ñuha jorrāelagon</em>,” he replied. “<em>Pendagon nyo</em>.”</p>
<p>She traced his lip with her thumb. “You have spoken in that tongue before.”</p>
<p>“Mm . . . ” He bit her nail teasingly. “It’s the language of my people, the Dragon Lords of Old Valyria.”</p>
<p>“And what did you say?”</p>
<p>Aegon took a half-step up and brought his mouth close to her ear, his breath like a warm breeze on her cheek. “I said, ‘Good night, my love. Dream of me.’”</p>
<p>Her handmaidens squealed when Betha leaned in, pressing her lips to his softly, then a second time with more urgency, and coiled her arms around his shoulders. Afterwards, she forced herself up another step, and another as though her legs were made of stone, and he watched as she and her handmaidens melted into the heavy shadows like smoke.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Black is the colour of mourning, I said,” Septa Clodagh snapped, standing beside Betha in her rooms at Summerhall. “And she is not in mourning. Black will not work. Perhaps something in red? Or silver?”</p><p>The seamstress, a chubby, homely woman of over fifty years, frowned, obviously offended by Septa’s tone. Betha had the grace to appear ashamed, and tempered the old woman’s words with a courtesy.</p><p>She and Septa Clodagh had seen near ten fabric samples, most of them black. They were beautiful fabrics, some from Myr and Tyrosh and Yi Ti across the Narrow Sea. There were cottons, laces, satins and silks, and thin wools as well, embroidered with flowers, moons, stars and suns, and all manner of patterned scrollwork. And black was certainly her colour. Her mother called her Black Betha, Father too when he was feeling less rigid, for her black-brown eyes and hair. The fabrics <em>were</em> beautiful, but like Septa said, they were ill-suited for marriage, being the colour of mourning and ravens. The colour of Death. She was thrilled to be marrying Aegon, excited to walk into the holy sept on Father’s strong arm, and make her vows in the sight of the Seven. She would not wear a gown that better suggested she was marching to her own funeral, however well it might suit her.</p><p> Replacing the black silk on the table, the seamstress searched the samples she’d brought for something more suitable. They were all black or red or silver or white: Blackwood colours. <em>And Targaryen colours</em>, thought Betha with a small smile. That she was wedding a Targaryen, at least she could keep her old clothes, rather than having to replace them with cloaks and gowns in her husband’s colours.</p><p>The seamstress showed them a number of red and silver silks, each more lovely than the last.</p><p>Princesses Daella and Rhae sat on the chaise lounge behind them, a series of sketches fanned out over their skirts. “That one!” squealed Daella, pointing to a bolt of dip-dyed red silk that faded from crimson into sandstone orange, then finally to buttercup yellow.</p><p>“Oh yes!” agreed Rhae. She leapt to her feet, wrapped a length of fabric round Betha’s waist and swished it side to side so that the colours moved together. “It’s like flames. See?”</p><p>“How lovely!” agreed Septa.</p><p>Daella cupped her face in her hands, stamping her feet in excitement. “It really is. Oh, Beth! Pick that one. You’ll look so beautiful in it and Aegon will fall over himself when he sees, I’m sure!”</p><p>“Aegon would fall over himself if she walked into the sept wearing a potato sack,” Rhae said and laughed. She leaned over and kissed Betha’s cheeks sweetly. “But seriously, this is the fabric. It’ll work so well with a few of the designs, I think. We like these ones the best, but it’s to be your gown, not ours.”</p><p>Betha’s smile stretched further, her cheeks pleasantly sore. Ever since Prince Maekar consented to Aegon’s betrothal, Betha found herself smiling more often than before.</p><p>In preparation for the wedding, Betha had moved into Summerhall with a few handmaidens, with her parents taking residence in the Guest Wing. Once she was married, they would return to Raventree Hall. Initially, Betha was nervous. She knew, of course, that she was safe with Aegon. And otherwise there was his trusted friend, Ser Duncan, whom Betha had come to care for like a brother. But what would happen when they were both busy, or had left the castle to hunt or ride, or if the King summoned them to court? Daeron was harmless, though he stunk of wine and had made more than a few lewd remarks in her presence. Betha feared Aerion – his time in the Free Cities had little effect on tempering his moods. And Prince Maekar was a cold and harsh man. Though he was courteous enough, and had welcomed her to Summerhall, there was a formality in his speech and stance that suggested that she would find no fatherly love from him.</p><p>And then there were Aegon’s sisters.</p><p>Betha was certain that they would hate her, or, in the very least, that their courtesy and kindness was only pretend. After all, Aegon was betrothed to Daella since they were born, and he’d told her of how Rhae had once poisoned his water with a love potion to try and convince him to wed her instead. She thought that they would blame her for stealing him, seducing him with black magic. But instead they’d welcomed her to Summerhall with childish excitement, chittering like hens, saying that she was now their beloved sister and they would have such fun together, and fussing over what beautiful black hair she had or how pretty she was and how lovely it was that they’d fallen in love, for how often were highborn lords and ladies free to marry for love?</p><p>“It’s like a song!” Daella said Betha’s first night in Summerhall. They had just finished supper and had taken their cakes and tea on the limestone terrace outside Rhae’s rooms, looking out over the foothills of the Red Mountains. The sisters were insistent that she tell them <em>everything</em>, though Betha wasn’t comfortable revisiting the circumstances in which Aegon had come into her life. That he was in it was all that mattered. She simply said that he’d saved her life from monsters – which really wasn’t a lie.</p><p>“And you aren’t cross?” she’d asked Daella.</p><p>“Cross? Why <em>ever</em> would I be cross? Because I was betrothed to him?” She’d waved a hand absently, as if swatting a fly. “Pish-posh. The last Targaryens to wed a brother or sister were Aelor and Aelora, our cousins on our father’s side. I would have married Aegon if Father insisted, but honestly, I’m perfectly content not to. I love him, of course. He’s my brother. But I can’t say that the notion of sharing his bed ever really interested me.”</p><p>“And you?” Betha glanced at Rhae, who’d finished her third blueberry and lemon cake while they were both still working on their first. “I heard you gave him a love potion once.”</p><p>Rhae laughed so hard she nearly vomited. But it hardly seemed to turn her stomach. Once the laughter subsided, she took a fourth cake from the communal plate and cut into it savagely. “He’s still telling that story? Gods be good! I was a child of four when I tried that. The ‘love potion’ was only rosewater that I’d murmured some incantation over. It was nothing serious.”</p><p>“Besides . . .” Daella sipped her tea, her lips pulled back into a feline smirk. “There is someone <em>else</em> that our sweet little sister has her eyes on now.”</p><p>“You <em>hush</em>!” Rhae hissed, turning a bright pink.</p><p>“Who is it?” Betha breathed, feeling like the sisters were childhood friends. She simply had to be on this little secret.</p><p>Daella curled her finger in silent behest to come in closer. Rhae worried her lip, pulling her silver-blonde hair in shame while Betha obliged. “It’s our baby brother’s rather <em>large</em> shadow.”</p><p>Betha sucked a breath in through her teeth and Rhae moaned sorrowfully, burying her face in her skirts. “Ser Duncan? You are taken with him?”</p><p>“Not simply taken,” Daella said as Rhae’s face went from pink to crimson, in stark contrast with her pale hair. “She’s in love! My sweet Rhae. See how she blushes?” Daella seemed to be enjoying her sister’s torment and chewed on a bite of cake thoughtfully. “He is handsome, I suppose, in that smallfolk sort of way. But I’ve never met someone so tall! Have you?”</p><p>Betha shook her head no. A few of her father’s knights were large men, but none of them came close to Ser Duncan. Even Father’s tallest knight would be like a hill beside a mountain standing next to him.</p><p>“Of course, he has large hands too. And feet. You know what it means, right?”</p><p>Betha’s brows came together. “No . . .What?”</p><p>“You haven’t heard?” Daella laughed, high and tinkly. “Goodness. You are such an innocent little maiden, aren’t you, Beth? Oh! I love you.”</p><p>“Daella, that’s enough!” Rhae said, standing. Her embarrassment had turned into rage and her hands were balled into fists. “It was fine to reveal to her my secret, but now you are being wicked. Don’t spoil Beth’s opinion of you.”</p><p>But Daella wasn’t even slightly bothered by her sister’s fury. “She was bound to learn what a wicked woman I truly am eventually. Better now than later, I say. Now, what I was saying . . . “ She smiled a cat’s smile. “Ah – I remember. A big man with big hands and big feet is said to have a big cock too! A man as large as our Ser Duncan ought to be bigger than his horse! And sweet little Rhae simply <em>longs</em> to have him inside  – ”</p><p>Rhae shrieked like an enraged wildcat and lunged over the little round table, knocking over tea cups, plates and silverware in the process. She fell onto her sister, kicking, screaming and clawing her face and hair and skirts, while Daella fought back, beating Rhae’s chest with a fist and pulling on her braid. The fight was broken by Septa Clodagh only a few minutes later, though there was a horrible mess once they were finally pulled apart. Both princesses were covered in blueberry stains and copper tea, their hair hanging haphazardly from their braids, their skirts torn and filthy. She felt terrible that they’d fought simply because Daella had brought her into their secret, sisterly world, but the following morning, when she’d visited Rhae’s rooms intending to apologize, Daella was already there beside her, sewing a dragon onto the hem of her skirt while Rhae sharpened an elegant short sword with a whetstone. There were all laughter and smiles, as if nothing had happened between them. </p><p>Betha learned that that was what it was like to have sisters. Betha had brothers, but no sisters, and brothers were not the same. She had her own fights with Daella and Rhae, in time, often over silly things like minor slights and conflicting opinions. But like them, she would forget or forgive within a few hours and they would be best friends once more.</p><p>And she was more than thankful for their company the morning the ravens came from King’s Landing. Bittersteel had crowned Haegon, the fourth son of the bastard Daemon Blackfyre, King, and crossed the Narrow Sea, beginning the Third Blackfyre Rebellion against House Targaryen. As he had in 196 AC, Prince Maekar marched with his king to face the Blackfyre Pretender. But this time, instead of Prince Baelor, Maekar had his sons – Aegon and Aerion – by his side.</p><p>Aegon looked magnificent mounted on Balerion, wearing his shining black steel with its marbled red veins, and a crimson cloak flowing over his shoulder. As magnificent as he had looked when he’d ridden onto the field the morning of her nameday tourney. But instead of overwhelming happiness, she felt overwhelming sorrow.</p><p><em>He’s riding off to war, and he may never return</em>, she’d thought. How many men had perished the last time a Blackfyre called himself the true king of Westeros? And even if he survived a battle like Redgrass Fields, what would happen to him if the Pretender won the war?</p><p>Betha pulled him into a fierce kiss, her tears hot on her cheeks. She would not send him off with a peck on the cheek. Let the others stare, she thought, and say whatever they will. “Do not leave me a widow before making me a wife,” she said when he pulled back regrettably.</p><p>“I <em>will</em> return to you,” Aegon replied. “I swear.”</p><p>And as before, he’d kept his promise, returning less than four months later, though she was not so foolish to believe that it was by sheer will he returned triumphant, but rather by luck and skill of sword. Celebrations followed, lasting the whole of the week, only to turn sour when a raven came with a message that Bittersteel, whom Aerys had spared, escaped on route to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, where he was sentenced to take the Black.</p><p>“The King is a fool!” spat Aerion, his purple eyes flaring. He paced the length of Maekar’s table in the Prince’s solar. “He should have killed Bittersteel like Lord Bloodraven and I suggested!”</p><p>“Uncle Baelor believed in clemency,” replied Aegon from his seat, his leg crossed over his knee. He read over the King’s message once more, then tossed it onto the table with a flick of his wrist. “Besides, he is King Aerys’ uncle, and killing him would have made the King a kinslayer.”</p><p>Aerion paused his pacing, his lips peeling back. Duncan half-thought he’d strike Aegon in his rage, but he turned his venomous eyes on Duncan instead. “And how fares our merciful uncle? Oh . . . Wait. I’d nearly forgotten. He was killed protecting this big oaf. He should have let me had my way. A couple of teeth – ”</p><p>“And a hand and a foot,” Aegon interrupted, although Duncan wished he would be silent. Ashford Meadow was a long time ago, and he was careful enough around Aerion already, without Aegon adding kindling to the fire.</p><p>Aerion only shrugged. “Had he let me have my blood price, he might still be here. It was mercy that killed Prince Baelor. And mercy is what will kill King Aerys too, mark my words.”</p><p>Aegon scowled. “It wasn’t mercy that killed our Uncle Baelor, my sweet brother. It was <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Enough!” Maekar interjected, his voice like thunder. “Now is not the time to reopen those wounds. Aerion has the right of things in this. Aerys erred in letting Bittersteel live. He should’ve executed him, as Bloodraven suggested, and cut the head off the Blackfyre snake forever. Instead, he let him live, and now he is once more out of our reach.</p><p>“Baelor, in his infinite wisdom, would have said the same. The time for mercy is passed.”</p><p>Aegon pressed his lips together. He still had much to learn, thought Duncan. He was loath to admit Aerion was right. The fact remained, though, he was. Bittersteel had crowned three Blackfyre Pretenders now. So too had many lords of Westeros. Fewer this time than the last two – only the Yornwoods had taken the field in support of the Black Dragon – but clemency only worked once. Without consequence and fear of reprisal, the rebels would know the Dragon had no teeth.</p><p>But, fortunately, in time, Bittersteel and the Blackfyre Pretenders faded into memory and thoughts turned instead to Aegon and Betha’s royal wedding. Over the final two weeks, the towns surrounding the castle started to fill with high lords and knights and smallfolk come to see the wedding or the tourney, or to simply sit for the feast that would certainly follow.</p><p>The lords of the Great Houses – the Wardens Arryn, Lannister, Stark and Tyrell, as well as Lords Baratheon, Hightower, Martell and Tully – and their noble retinues were offered rooms in Summerhall’s Guest Wing, while both major and lesser lords – Bar Emmon, Forrester, Hollard, Mallister, Manderly, Royce . . . – had to erect their colourful pavilions outside the castle’s walls and a city emerged.</p><p>Aegon and Duncan stood on the battlements passing a skin of sour wine between them and pointing out the various banners, reciting which lords where which, and predicting who might ride in the tourney. They were surprised to note the banners of House Bracken, a rampant red stallion on a golden shield across a brown field. Clearly they were here to honour House Targaryen, Duncan remarked when Aegon pointed out the banners.</p><p>Beneath the battlements, the main road was congested with columns of mounted noblemen crossing the moat. The bridge was wide enough for three men to walk abreast, and spanned the length of the moat. The moat was half-filled with mountain runoff that entered through a channel carved far beneath the surrounding land and beneath the murky surface were hundreds of sharpened spikes, set to spear those who sought to scale the walls by means of swimming. Maekar’s steward would be noting the lords that entered, while pages, squires and stable boys would be taking their horses or showing them into the Keep to wash and change before presenting themselves to Maekar and his sons.</p><p>Aegon climbed off the battlements, finishing the last of the wineskin, and started for the stairs when he noticed that Duncan wasn’t following. When he looked back, the bigger man’s face had paled, the bump in his throat bulging when he swallowed. “What is it?”</p><p>“Nothing . . .” Duncan replied and shook his head. “It’s nothing.”</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Aegon rejoined him, peering between two crenellations to watch as the knights and lords passed below. Crossing right behind flowery Lord Tyrell came Lord Gerold Lannister, wearing a crimson cloak trimmed with ermine, with a gold lion rearing across the back. Beside him, on a blood bay with a beautiful bronze coat and a single white spot between its black eyes, rode the Lady Rohanne Webber. Or rather, Lady Rohanne <em>Lannister</em>.</p><p>Something in Aegon’s belly clenched achingly as Duncan silently left the battlements, his steps swift. Despite everything that had happened since leaving Standfast, Aegon knew that Duncan had never forgotten the Red Widow.</p><p>“Are you all right?” Aegon asked, falling into step beside Duncan. He thought about Betha, but he could not even imagine her on the arm of another man, much less the thought of her sharing his bed, birthing his sons, without feeling heartsick. “I know it must be hard – ”</p><p>Duncan stopped suddenly. “You<em> don’t</em> know, and you can’t ever know what it’s like.”</p><p>Aegon’s muscles tensed, but he reminded himself that Duncan’s ire was not personal. He was in pain, and pain made men say things that they otherwise wouldn’t. “I only meant that I can imagine. I remember Standfast. I was a boy but I was still there. I wasn’t blind either. I saw how much you cared for her. I knew.”</p><p>Duncan scratched the back of his neck. “I know . . . And I’m sorry. I know you mean well, but in this, you cannot even being to know what I’m feeling.”</p><p>He’d long forsaken his search for the Dornish puppeteer, Tanselle Too-Tall, confessing that they’d barely spoken to each other. Though he’d liked how she played with her puppets, and certainly found her pretty, he’d not been certain she even liked him in return. He’d not spend his life chasing fantasies, he’d said.</p><p>And Nymeria . . . She was married now, they’d heard, with a second son and a third babe in her belly. But Duncan was happy for her. He’d loved her, to be sure, and enjoyed their time together while it lasted. He’d hoped she would have settled and started a family of her own to share songs and stories with.</p><p>But Lady Rohanne was his only regret – the one person he wanted but could never have. Not because she cared not for him. Not because honour and oaths forced them to bid farewell. He lived his life as best he could; he honoured his liege lords, he kept his vows, he never cheated or stole, he respected women and protected the weak from harm. But simply because he was a baseborn bastard, the gods saw fit to deny him.</p><p>“You are blessed to be born into the most powerful House in Westeros,” Duncan said. “You are denied nothing. And you have only ever loved one woman – and she loves you as well. Had she truly been born a peasant, perhaps then you could understand. But she wasn’t.” And without allowing him a chance to argue, Duncan said that he needed time alone, and walked away.</p><p>After swearing his sword to House Targaryen, Maekar rewarded Duncan with a holdfast, and a household of servants to attend him and manage the property when he was not there. But Duncan had lived most of his life beneath hedges, serving others, so the notion of being served still felt foreign. Besides, he preferred to remain with his prince, so Maekar offered him rooms in the Great Keep, near Aegon’s chambers. But Duncan knew that that is where Aegon expected him to flee to. And as much as he appreciated his best friend’s concern, he meant what he said; he needed time by himself for now.</p><p>So instead, the former hedge knight found his way into the heart of Summerhall’s blossoming flower gardens. According to Aegon’s brother, Aemon, the gardens of Summerhall weren’t always as beautiful and complex as they were now. Once, they were little more than a handful of rose bushes interspersed between oak trees, and a couple simple stone benches for sitting. But when Maekar was named Prince of Summerhall, Aemon explained, he renovated the gardens as a wedding gift to his lady wife, Dyanna Dayne. He filled the empty plots with several species of tree and flower, and erected limestone pillars and iron latticework for the creeping plants to claim. Seven stone fountains were built in circular clearings, each topped with a scene from the ballads and folktales she liked most.</p><p>Duncan wandered between enormous hedges, taller than he was, making note of position of the midmorning sun. It was easy to become lost, but Duncan was pretty sure he knew his way well enough. He stopped beside one of the fountains. This one portrayed the Dance of Dragons: Arrax caught in the jaws of Vhagar. Duncan sat on the bench on the other side of the clearing, his elbows resting on his knees.</p><p>The hedges provided respite from the chaotic noise of the visiting high lords, replacing the clatter of horses and steel, the muddled shouting of men, with birdsong and chittering insects, and the hiss of water flowing steadily from the base of the fountain’s statue. The fair scent of the flowers hung heavily in the air – a pleasant change from the constant stench of blood, horseflesh and sweat. A chipmunk flashed by, pausing momentarily to study the knight with big, brown eyes before scurrying beneath the bushes. Duncan watched a mockingbird stab the earth in between the cobblestones, searching for small insects or seeds, and chirping merrily. A bee fluttered between three white lilies, pollinating them in turn.</p><p>Duncan leaned forward, massaging the woe from his face. He felt foolish, lamenting over Lady Rohanne like that. He suspected that they would cross paths someday, especially once he’d settled in Summerhall. But he was not prepared for how painful it was, watching her ride beside Gerold Lannister.</p><p>They’d not seen each other in near on six years, and had not spent much time together in the first place. But he’d never forgotten her. It was not possible, not when he still carried a memento of that time across his cheek, there every time he looked in the mirror or shaved, his razor hiccupping over the pale ridge of scar tissue. In Winterfell, he’d willed himself to bury her memory far in the back of his mind.</p><p>Even then, once – only once, thankfully – he’d pictured Rohanne when he was making love to Nymeria. The image struck him suddenly. He was buried inside her, nuzzling her neck while he massaged her breast in one hand, the other rubbing the sensitive spot between her thighs in time with each thrust. It might’ve been the fact that he’d taken her from behind, the way she sometimes wanted, and could not see her face. Whatever it was, he imagined himself making love to Lady Rohanne instead, the Red Window’s short, slender body, covered in brown freckles, pressed firmly to his, her sweet warmth around him. And even though it lasted a moment, he was left with a feeling of overwhelming contempt. He wept when he told Nymeria what had happened – he wasn’t planning too, but the shame threatened to eat him inside out, and he knew he would confess eventually. Better sooner than later, when she would feel like he’d betrayed her.</p><p>But now Nymeria was wed, and Duncan had not met someone he’d loved as much as her since. He wasn’t one to visit brothels, nor take camp followers into his tent. So the memories of Rohanne had returned.</p><p>Footsteps rang out over the hedges, shattering the stillness. Then came feminine laughter and Princess Rhae, surrounded by three handmaidens, stepped into the clearing. Duncan half-thought Egg had sent her to check in on him. She seemed sincerely surprised to find him there, though, and his suspicions vanished. “Oh! Ser Duncan. Forgive me for interrupting.”</p><p>Duncan stood swiftly, bowing low. “You have not interrupted me, Your Grace.” She had, though it wasn’t courteous to say so. “Have I trespassed on private space?”</p><p>“No,” she replied. “We were merely passing through. Alysanne has not seen the Fountain of the Dancing Dragons.”</p><p>“It’s lovely,” Duncan said. He’d never been proficient with words, and courtesies felt heavy in his mouth, but he offered them nevertheless. “Who sculpted them?”</p><p>Rhae pressed her finger to her pointed chin. “In truth, I’m not sure. I never considered it. But I’m sure Aemon knows. I will certainly have to ask him.”</p><p>Silence stretched between them. Duncan hoped that they would move on, but neither Rhae nor the three women flocking her seemed inclined to leave so he started to wonder if they were expecting him to excuse himself instead.</p><p>Finally, Rhae’s eyes – the same shade as Aegon’s – flickered between Duncan and the bench he was previously sitting on. “Shall we? Or would you prefer to be by yourself?”</p><p><em>By myself</em>, Duncan thought, but when he opened his mouth to politely refuse her, instead he said, “Please, sit. I’d like the company.”</p><p>Smoothing her skirts, Rhae sat next to him on the bench while her handmaidens settled on the edge of the fountain. Small fish with orange scales swam in the clear waters, and coins littered the bottom. It was believed, by commonfolk, that tossing a coin into a fountain brought luck, though Duncan was surprised that the superstition was held here.</p><p>There they sat in companionable silence for some time. Duncan fixated on his knees, not sure why he’d invited her to sit with him. It was not that he wasn’t pleased to see the Princess. Rhae was lovely. She was Maekar’s youngest and, some believed, his particular favourite. Her mother passed a few hours after bringing her into the world, and some said that that was why Maekar was so taken with her, that his wife breathed her last breath into her, so it was within her she lived on.</p><p>And Duncan enjoyed her company well enough. Since coming to Summerhall with Aegon, Duncan had become increasingly familiar with his siblings, except for Aerion, of course – though there was no lost love there. Aemon, when he visited, was charming, with an easy smile and quick wit. Duncan learned much from him, not only because he’d forged several chains in his maester’s collar. He was intelligent, it was said, well before he’d ever left for Oldtown, and Duncan found his endless stories fascinating, though he sometimes felt stupid by comparison. Daeron preferred to spend time in the neighbouring towns, visiting brothels or taverns and while Duncan sometimes shared wine with him, the Prince tended to mumble prophesies that bothered him. Others might mistake his mutterings for nonsense, but he never forgot how Daeron had foreseen Prince Baelor’s passing, and Duncan’s role in it.</p><p>The women he saw less of, for obvious reasons. Daella pretended to be innocent, but Duncan knew there was a wicked side to her; though hers was a mischievousness, in which she stirred contempt or played pranks on her sister or servants, rather than the base cruelty found in Aerion. And Rhae, he knew, could respond in kind, but tended to focus her energy on other pursuits. She could embroider and sew and fussed over pretty things, but he’d seen her in the courtyard too, hacking the limbs off strawmen and racing round Summerhall astride her horse. Once, Duncan had even see her take a few passes with a lance, but she had little strength to angle it properly, and less still to carry her shield, and fell easily from her seat.</p><p>Still, there was a kindness in her that he liked. She was easy to talk to, eagerly listening, never interrupting. She seemed to know what he needed to hear, when he needed to hear it, or when he needed silence. And even though he’d known her only two years, there were times when it seemed he’d know her forever.</p><p>She couldn’t know what he was feeling, no more than Aegon could, but eventually, Duncan told her why he was hiding out here. He’d never spoken of Rohanne to her, if only because he hadn’t liked revisiting those memories – the pain they brought. But he told her of the summer when he’d served Eustace Osgrey in Standfast, the conflict over the Chequy Water, of meeting the Red Widow, and how he’d imagined her to be some cruel hag with layers of paper-thin skin covered in warts. But instead, she’d turned out to be beautiful, only twenty-five, and fair, her malice a power play to ensure she was not overthrown by her own men. Rhae listened, without comment, while he told her of his respect for Lady Webber. He pitied her her position – to be forced to marry someone simply to keep the lands and titles that were, by rights, hers – and respected her tenacity, even if her methods seemed harsh. Somehow, he said, that respect turned into love.</p><p>“I’d learned she had married Ser Eustace,” he said, having recounted the trial by combat he’d fought in the Chequy Water. “She said that, had I been better born, she would have married me, but when I lay there, not once had she visited.”</p><p>Duncan fell silent, not telling her what happened next in the stables, that he’d kissed Rohanne, or that they’d been fully prepared to lay together in the hay. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew she would not take kindly to knowing that he would have made love to a married woman, if only his honour had not proved stronger. The thought of soiling her image of him bothered him more than he thought it would.</p><p>Finally, Rhae shifted closer, her silk skirts swishing, so that their thighs touched, and rested a hand over top his. It was a simple touch. But Duncan felt better, comforted. Even sitting, the top of the Princess’s head only barely reached his shoulders, but he turned and faced her and, suddenly tired, fell into her small, strong arms. Still, Rhae said nothing. She simply held him, knowing that that was all he needed.</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>How much time had passed since Princess Rhae found Ser Duncan sitting by the Fountain of the Dancing Dragons, since he’d told her of the Lady Rohanne and how seeing her pained him so, she wasn’t sure. The time seemed to pass slowly, but instantaneously, so that it was like they’d been sitting there, together, both for hours and for mere seconds, before her cousin, Lord Brynden Rivers, the Hand of the King, stepped into the clearing.</p><p>“Princess Rhae. Ser Duncan,” Lord Bloodraven said by way of welcome.</p><p>“Cousin!” Red-faced, Rhae shuffled back on the bench, putting space between herself and Duncan, wondering how much Bloodraven had seen. <em>Everything, most like</em>, she thought, remembering the old riddle. Nothing scandalous had happened, but the Hand was a fickle man. Rhae hoped that he would not punish Duncan somehow for this . . . imprudence, innocent though it was.</p><p>Bloodraven was a chilling sight. Being King Aegon IV’s bastard, he was older than Maekar, though not really by much, in truth. But like her lord father, he stood as formidable as one half his age; back straight and broad of chest and shoulder. His broad but slender frame was covered in skin the colour of moonlight, paler than even his silver Targaryen hair, which hung loose over his shoulders. Except, of course, for the birthmark on his left cheek. The large red stain stretched from his ear to his neck, fanning out like the feathered wings of a bird – hence the title “Bloodraven”. But what frightened her most were Bloodraven’s eyes. He only had one; he’d lost his other in the Battle of Redgrass Fields when Bittersteel cut him with his sword. Now, there was only the empty socket there, thick with scar tissue. He often left the eye the way it was, barely concealed behind his hair. He must’ve known that it made men nervous. But this morning, respectful of the merry occasion, he wore a black leather patch ornamented with crimson lace and circular fragments of carnelian over it.</p><p>“Your Grace,” Lord Bloodraven said with a bow of his pale head, “Might I speak with Ser Duncan privately?”</p><p>Duncan had never really learned the hierarchy of the court so he wasn’t sure who had more power here, the Hand or a princess. But Duncan suspected that even if Rhae’s word carried more weight, Bloodraven’s request was a courtesy. He could have her hauled off over his shoulder, kicking and screaming, if it pleased him.</p><p>“Of course,” Rhae said, standing, but she shot Duncan a concerned look, her eyes shining amethyst in the summer sunlight. <em>I’m sorry . . . </em>it seemed to say. She left, though not willingly, her three handmaidens following one step behind.</p><p>Bloodraven fixed his one, remaining eye on Duncan while he waited for Rhae’s footsteps to fade. He seemed to be studying him, perhaps piecing together what he’d walked in on, wondering if there was something to be concerned with. There wasn’t; Duncan liked Rhae, but he'd meant nothing by it. If Lady Rohanne, the lady of a lesser House, was beyond his station, Princess Rhae was even farther.</p><p>Bloodraven’s thin lips twitched into something that resembled a smile. “Come now, ser. Don’t look so troubled.” Even his voice was off-putting, vibrating in the back of his throat like some kind of horrid serpent stirring beneath the earth. “Had I walked in to see the Princess on her knees, with her sweet little mouth on your cock, I wouldn’t care. Relax.”</p><p>Without even waiting for Duncan’s invitation, he took a seat on the bench. “I’m here with a message from King Aerys.”</p><p>Duncan said nothing, waiting for the Hand to continue. He seldom spent time in King’s Landing since becoming Ser Arlan’s squire, but he knew that the King’s court was a nest of vipers. And Bloodraven was perhaps the worst of them. He knew better than to say something the Hand might twist for his own purposes.</p><p>Bloodraven crossed one knee over the other, tapping his thigh with his long fingers, lost in thought. “You continue to impress me, Hedge Knight. And I’m not easily impressed.</p><p>“First, my wise and beloved cousin, Baelor, substantiates your claim to knighthood in Ashford Meadow.” Duncan tried not to look surprised. Bloodraven had not been there, but several lords were present when Baelor claimed that he’d known Ser Arlan, permitting Duncan a place in the lists, so it was no wonder he’d heard of what happened. “Then, Baelor sees such valour in you, he stands with you against his own blood in the Trial, even though he knew it might cost him his life.”</p><p>Duncan’s hands balled into fists. Guilt flowed over him, threatening to choke him, the way it always did when he remembered Ashford Meadow. Like Maekar said, that moment would haunt him forever.</p><p>“Instead of punishment, Maekar then <em>rewards </em>you, and permits his son to travel Westeros with you,” Bloodraven continued. “<em>Then</em>, you accidentally cross paths with a Blackfyre Pretender and somehow manage to foil his plans. Though . . . not without help, I imagine.” He smirked, his teeth flashing white. Duncan remembered his previous suspicions that the hedge knight, Maynard Plumm, was not really a hedge knight. Nor was “Maynard Plumm” his name. No one had heard of him, nor seen him, since Whitewalls. And Duncan had heard that there were men that were capable of changing their faces like others changed clothes. The Hand’s timing was far too convenient to be coincidence.</p><p>“And now . . . Here you are.” Bloodraven waved a hand, indicating the whole of Summerhall. “A knight sworn to House Targaryen.”</p><p>“Have you a point?” blurted Duncan.</p><p>If Bloodraven was bothered by his outburst, he showed no sign. “Yes . . . In less than ten years, you, a baseborn hedge knight, have risen higher than many men of better birth will in their entire lives. As I said, I’m impressed. As is the King.”</p><p>“The King?”</p><p>Bloodraven nodded watching water flow from the fountain of Arrax fighting Vhagar. For several long moments, he said nothing. Then, “Aerys and I have been watching you for some time. And we agree that there are fewer knights in Westeros as true as you.”</p><p>At that, Duncan had no words. “You honour me, Your Grace.”</p><p>“No . . . Not yet.”</p><p>Duncan’s sandy brow furrowed and Bloodraven chuckled. Clearly he enjoyed playing with men the way Tanselle Too-Tall enjoyed playing with her puppets.</p><p>Bloodraven examined his nails, scrapping a black seed from beneath his middle finger. He held Duncan’s eyes with his own. His crimson stare felt like the tip of a blade, boring into him, stabbing through layers of bone, muscle and tendons, flaying him open. “His Royal Highness, King Aerys I Targaryen, is offering you, Dunk of Flea Bottom, the white cloak of the Kingsguard. Will you accept it?”</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>Betha Blackwood trembled with anxious excitement as she stood outside the Sept. She had never seen so many nobles in one place; so many that most of them could not fit in the holy Sept itself.</p><p>The walk from the Great Keep seemed like miles and Betha’s legs felt like seaweed by the time she stepped beneath the watchful eyes of the Seven. The crowd inside the Sept was comprised of Aegon’s family – Aemon, Aerion and Daeron, his brothers, his father, Maekar, his sisters, as well as King Aerys and his Queen, Aelinor Penrose, Lord Bloodraven, the Hand of the King, Princesses Aelora and Daenora, Aerion’s wife, and Daeron’s wife, Kiera of Tyrosh, who had once been wife of Prince Valarr before the Great Spring Sickness took him  – Betha’s brothers, parents and extended relatives, and the high lords of the Great Houses of Westeros.</p><p>Aegon waited for her between the altars of the Father and Mother. His silver hair was freshly washed and brushed straight, two pieces pulled back from his temples, braided with gold thread, and tied about his head like a crown. His tunic was black calfskin leather, embroidered with a large, three-headed dragon over the breast, with red silk sleeves covered in scrollwork, accented with fine gold and silver filigree. Over one shoulder, he wore a matching red cloak.</p><p>Once the choir had finishing singing hymns to the Father, Mother and Maiden, Lord Blackwood led Betha between the crowd, stopping when he reached the raised step on which her soon-to-be husband waited. Aegon offered her his hand, helping her so that she would not trip on the hem of her skirt. Blackwood stepped behind Betha to raise the black cloak of his House from her shoulders, folding it neatly over an arm. He retreated to one side of the Sept, standing next to his wife, Betha’s mother, while Aegon covered her with a cloak of his own, symbolizing that he now protected her, where her father once had.</p><p>They stood together before the Septon, who led prayers to only six of the Seven faces of God. No prayers were offered to the Stranger, the face of Death.</p><p>Having finished his prayers, the Septon’s voice faded into silence, the only sound the faint sputter of the burning candles on their altars. Betha held Aegon’s eyes with her own, and, keeping her tears at bay, made her vows. “With this kiss, I pledge my love and take you for my lord and husband.”</p><p>Aegon’s eyes sparkled too, and his voice cracked when he repeated, “With this kiss, I pledge my love and take you for my lady and wife.” He leaned in, moving both hands to cup her face, and pressed his mouth to hers.</p><p>“I now pronounce them man and wife,” said the Septon, while bells started to toll in the belfry. “One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever.”</p><p>“I love you, Aegon Targaryen,” Betha said, finally letting her tears flow freely.</p><p>He kissed her twice more, once on the lips, then on the neck when he held her and buried his face in her shoulder. “And I love you, Betha Blackwood,” he murmured softly, but she heard him still, even over the bells and cheers of the crowd outside. “In this life and in whatever one that follows it.”</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>That night, the moon was in its fullest phase, so bright it blotted out the millions of stars surrounding it. The narrow river, flowing from the Red Mountains over the foothills, shimmered like silver, the fast-moving currents like rippled embellishments.</p><p>The city of noble tents blazed orange from hundreds of campfires, the fragrance of cooking meat rising into the night sky on plumes of black smoke. The hour was late, the feast long over, but still Summerhall thrummed. Aegon and Betha had left the Great Hall hours passed. Duncan himself carried Lady Betha to her husband’s bedchambers, lifting her high so that the high lords could not reach her. The bedding ceremony was a crude custom, Aegon agreed. Although neither Lord Blackwood nor Prince Maekar forbade the lords their tradition, Duncan made sure that Betha was spared the humiliation of it.</p><p>Once he’d seen her safety to Aegon’s bed, Duncan made his way onto the battlements, his belly full and head throbbing from the music, smoke, and wine.</p><p>A knight of the Kingsguard . . . Lord Bloodraven’s offer felt like a dream and Duncan kept expecting to wake. Since the first moment Ser Arlan called him his squire, he’d wanted a white cloak. Every time he saw his lanky reflection in lakes or rivers, or sat beneath hedges buffing rust from his plate, he imagined himself in polished steel, the crown, encircled by seven swords, emblazoned on his chest. It was what every knight wanted, but Duncan never thought he would ever <em>really </em>be chosen. Now that he was . . . he wasn’t sure that he was worthy.</p><p>Despite Lord Bloodraven’s intense stare, Duncan had not responded to his offer.</p><p>“A spot on the Kingsguard is the highest honour,” he’d said, “but it comes with a heavy price, I know. Kingsguard serve for life. You must renounce the lands that Prince Maekar rewarded you. And you can never take a wife, nor father a child, for the rest of your days.”</p><p>Duncan cared little for the lands Maekar presented him. Seldom had he owned more than the clothes on his back, his plate, his sword and one or two horses. Renouncing them would be no hardship. Though, to never take a wife . . .</p><p>It shouldn’t have mattered. He was a baseborn bastard; fine clothes couldn’t change that. But he had influence, lands, wealth. And perhaps, he might now even have the chance to marry the daughter of a knight or lesser lord. To be happy, the way Aegon was happy with Betha.</p><p>“You have time to consider it,” Bloodraven said, taking his leave. “But I will need your response soon, before the King returns to King’s Landing. Choose wisely.”</p><p>Despite everything, Duncan knew that he would accept Bloodraven's offer. He had to.</p><p><em>“You were a White Sword, ser, a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard, the greatest knight in the Seven Kingdoms. And you lived for no other purpose than to guard and serve and please your king.”  </em>Daemon II Blackfyre had said that, Duncan remembered, standing on the battlements of Whitewalls Castle. He’d nearly forgotten; he’d been well into his cups that night. The Pretender was convinced his rebellion would be successful, and had hoped his vision meant that Duncan would be his sworn sword.</p><p>But he was wrong – both in that Duncan would ever serve him, and in his rebellion’s success. And even if Duncan had remembered their conversation earlier, he might’ve believed it nonsense, if not for the visions Daeron had had of him shortly before his trial by combat. If Daeron’s visions came true, Daemon’s might too.</p><p>“So this is where you are hiding.”</p><p>Duncan startled, instantly reaching for his sword. It was halfway out of the sheath when he realized who had spoken, a chill coursing over his skin. “Lady Rohanne . . .”</p><p>The torches on the castle walls bathed Lady Rohanne in soft light. She was as beautiful as Duncan remembered. More so, if it was even possible, though there were a few lines around her eyes now. Her belly was softer too, he noticed, her breasts larger but less perky. Because she’d born two children less than eighteen months passed, he reminded himself.</p><p>“I thought you heard my footsteps. Forgive me,” Rohanne said approaching. She was wearing a fitted, but modest, crimson dress with a high neckline, inset with beads that glittered gold in the torchlight, and a belt of heavy lion-shaped medallions. Her red hair – which had resumed its length since he’d cropped it off - was coiffed and curled and bound atop her head, with a few strands left to frame her face or hang loosely over her shoulders. A comb, fashioned into a spider’s web, nestled within.</p><p>Duncan pushed his sword back into its sheath. “I was in my own thoughts.”</p><p>She was holding two cups of red wine and offered him one. It sparkled like liquid rubies in the faint light. He hesitated before taking it, though he made no move to drink. She smiled. “It’s not poisoned. I thought I made that clear once before.”</p><p>Despite himself, Duncan laughed, tracing his thumb over the cup’s edge. His throat was parched, though he was certain that it wasn’t from lack of wine. “It’s not that, honestly. I simply . . . I’ve had plenty tonight.”</p><p>“Another cup won’t hurt then.” A small vial emerged from Rohanne’s sleeve. It was made of blue crystal, carved so that each end was perfectly pointed. She removed the invisible stopper from one end with a flick of her thumb, pouring three beads of thick clear fluid into her wine.</p><p>He watched her with horrified interest. Perhaps she was a witch, playing with black magic, like the rumours said! He placed the cup she’d handed him on a crenelation, no longer thirsty.</p><p>She felt his concerned stare and noted the abandoned cup. “Oh, Duncan, please. Don’t look like that. This is nothing, I swear.”</p><p>He snorted cynically. “Then what is it?”</p><p>She sighed, replacing the vial in the folds of her sleeve. “I suppose I should have kept it secret, even from you, but I could not risk my handmaids seeing and before now, there was nowhere safe for me to indulge in it.”</p><p>Duncan lowered his voice, not that he suspected they could have been overheard; the Great Hall still trembled with excitement and song. “Rohanne . . . What<em> is</em> it?“</p><p>“It’s . . . medicine. For women.” Before he worried, she clarified, “I’m not sick. Not precisely. But I swear I never poisoned the wine. Drink it.”</p><p>He sipped the wine slowly, tentatively. It was from the Reach, sweet, with a heady flavour of blackberries, cinnamon and rose. She was keeping something from him, he thought, but Duncan knew better than to persist. She owed him no explanations for her behaviour. But he could not help worrying.</p><p>“Can I ask,” he started, “why you are here, my lady?”</p><p>“’My lady?’” Leaning on the crenelation, Rohanne arched a scarlet brow curiously. “A moment ago, you called me ‘Rohanne’.”</p><p>“A slip of the tongue,” he said. “I meant no offense.”</p><p>“I was not offended,” she said, swirling her wine. “I liked hearing it, to be honest. You have never called me by my name before. Not without a “Lady” before it, I mean.”</p><p>“Because it wasn’t my place to,” Duncan explained. “You are highborn, and I was a . . . “</p><p>“A bastard?”</p><p>Duncan smirked, licking wine from the corner of his mouth. He nearly forgot how witty she was. “I meant to say that I was a hedge knight. But that’s true.”</p><p>She was silent some time, trembling. Duncan had only considered how hard this was for him; he never imagined that this could have been hard for her too. It was she who had married someone else – she who broke his heart. Yet . . . Did she not say that she would have married him if she could? Did she not return his kiss in the stables? Was it not she that eagerly pressed herself to him, her leg around his waist? If she had loved him, the way he loved her, this could not be easy for her either, thinking of what could have been between them.</p><p>“I was sorry to hear of Ser Eustace’s passing,” Duncan said, breaking the silence.</p><p>“So was I. We had our troubles, but he was a kind man. He treated me well in the time we had together.”</p><p>“And Gerold Lannister?”</p><p>Rohanne looked up from her wine, biting her lip hesitantly. “He is kind too. But he is more skilled with words than with actions. I was fond of his letters, before we wed. But I learned he prefers the company of his soldiers to any conversation with me. Though I suppose that is typical. Men often seem fonder of their comrades than their wives, except in bed.”</p><p>“You are lonely.” It wasn’t a question.</p><p>“I was.” After Gerold’s brother passed, she explained, Coldmoat was returned to House Rowan, and Rohanne moved to Casterly Rock. Her previous husbands’ kin managed Coldmoat in her stead, and except for a few handmaids, she saw them, at best, once a year. At Casterly Rock, she rarely saw her husband, except when he visited her to beget more children. Otherwise, she was left on her own, to try and entertain herself in this foreign place. “But I have my sons. I’m not so lonely now.”</p><p>Sorrow crossed her face like clouds. Duncan felt sorry. Ever since he’d seen her last, he imagined she was happy in her keep, content to pass the time with archery, embroidery, and horses. He imagined that while he was fighting ironborn or rogues, or stumbling into secret rebellions, she was attending balls and feasts and tourneys, that while he was eating hard salt beef, bony fish or stale bread, she was feasting on apple tarts and honeycombs, fresh fruits, lamprey pies, oxtail stews and roast venison, and honeyed wines from Lannisport.</p><p>But he realized that while his travels earned him fame, fortune and a family in the form of a bald-headed prince with a sharp tongue, she was all alone, and miserable. Even now, her only solace was a pair of baby boys, who would, eventually, grow and abandon her too.</p><p>“And you?” she wondered. “I’ve kept my ears open for stories of the famed Hedge Knight, Ser Duncan the Tall. But it’s hard to know what’s the truth and what’s embellished in the retelling.”</p><p>So he told her of the attempted Blackfyre Rebellion in Whitewalls, and of his time in Winterfell, in service to Lord Stark, and of the beauty of the Wall and valour of the Night’s Watch. He told her how he fought ironborn and wildlings, and once thought he saw a Child of the Forest, though it was not possible since they had not been seen in centuries. “I’m not sure what it was now. Probably a wilding child. Or maybe it was a mere trick of the light. The mind plays queer tricks.”</p><p>“And now you are here,” Rohanne said, clearly impressed.</p><p>“And now I’m here.”</p><p>She finished her wine and set the cup off to one side. “And have you a wife?”</p><p>He noticed she held her breath, waiting for his reply. “No.”</p><p>“Oh . . . “ She wasn’t sure whether she should feel happy that he’d never married, that there was no one she ought to be jealous of, or sad that he’d never found someone to share his life with. “And children?”</p><p>“No. None of those either.”</p><p>“I see.” She carved crumbling pebbles from the mortar with her finger. “If I may . . . Since Coldmoat, have you ever thought about me?”</p><p>He took a long pull of his wine, cringing when he swallowed. She wanted him to say something – but what? In truth, her memory haunted him. Other than in Winterfell, there wasn’t a day that went by when he’d not imagined the kind of life they would’ve had, had she chosen him over Coldmoat. That he’d not pictured a cottage or small holdfast nestled on the edge of a forest, full of children – short and slender, broad-shouldered and tall, with hair in every shade from sandy, sun-streaked blonde to beaten copper, and freckles on their little snub noses – that they could teach the bow and lance and sword. He pictured Rohanne with his sons, instructing them on the proper stance for shooting, while he helped his daughters into saddles, and led them along beaten paths.</p><p>And of course, he pictured them together. It might’ve pleased her to hear him say that he imagined them hunting together, her slaying buck or elk with a perfectly placed shot, he hauling it back home for slaughter, or racing over the hills – the loser to clean the linens – or simply to sit together, enjoying nothing but each other’s company. Perhaps she might read while he whittled wood into toys for their children with a carving knife. But he could not confess to picturing them together in more intimate situations. </p><p>“You keep silent so not to bring offence,” Rohanne said. “But I wonder . . . Is that because you have thought about me, and feel that that is not honourable? Or is it because you have not and feel that I will be sad?”</p><p>“Which would you prefer?” the knight replied.</p><p>“I’ve thought about you. A lot.” She took a step closer. She smelled of rosemary and lemon. “Do you believe me wicked for it?”</p><p>He remembered the morning they last saw each other, remembered their kiss, the feeling of her lips on his. It took everything in him to resist the inclination to wrap her in his arms. “Depends, I suppose.”</p><p>“On?”</p><p>“When, and in what context, you do so.”</p><p>“And if I said that it was when I’m most lonely?” She was close enough now that, though she stood shorter than his shoulders, he could feel her warm breath on his skin, could see the firelight reflected clearly in her sparkling eyes. Her breath trembled; her voice husky. “If I said that I think you every time Gerold’s inside me . . . Every time Eustace was. Or that I only wish I’d married you instead . . . Would you hate me for it?”</p><p>“Never . . .” <em>It’s the wine,</em> he thought, stooping to kiss her. <em>It’s only the wine . . .</em></p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
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    <p>The Great Keep of Summerhall was only slightly smaller than the Red Keep in King’s Landing, or the Sea Dragon Tower on Dragonstone. Yet, Betha could still hear the clamor of the feast in the Great Hall rumbling through the walls like something living. Though even the fanfare of laughter, music and cheerful shouting could not compare to her racing heart, thundering between her ribs.</p><p>Aegon’s apartments were near silent. After carrying her in from the Great Hall, Duncan scattered the high lords like a coop full of excited hens. She’d been fearing the bedding ceremony – frightened that it would bring back memories of Fairmarket, of the men that had torn at her skirts and bodice – but the knight managed to keep them off, though Aegon could not say the same. The highborn ladies of the court managed to free him of his belt, cloak, and calfskin tunic before he’d tumbled in over the threshold, fleeing their eager hands.</p><p>Now, he stood before a square table in the solar, stripped to his waist, and poured two crystal cups of wine. On the table was also a bowl of assorted berries, colourful sweetmeats, and fruit tarts basted in butter.</p><p>Once Septa Clodagh finished lighting the last of the candles littering the bedroom, she took her leave, pausing to touch Betha’s forearm kindly. She and Lady Blackwood explained what would be expected of Betha tonight and knew she was horribly nervous.</p><p>“Does it hurt?” she’d wondered, after Septa – having less tact than her mother – explained how, once they were both naked, he would enter her, and how his manhood moving inside her would break her maidenhead; that there would be blood because of it.</p><p>Lady Blackwood had kissed her cheek comfortingly. “A bit, my sweet. But if he is careful, it won’t hurt much, or for long.”</p><p>Regardless, Septa had said, she must not complain. It was a woman’s obligation to accept and please her husband. Although, her mother continued, it was also a man’s responsibility to treat his wife with kindness. The Prince was a gentle man, and loved her most fiercely, she’d said, so Betha need not worry.</p><p>Betha felt like there was a swarm of butterflies fluttering inside her belly, clawing their way into her throat to escape. It was a warm enough evening, the air heavy and scented with cedarwood, frankincense and lavender. But her hands were as cold as ice and shivering. Aegon offered her one of the cups, his fingers warm when he touched hers. She accepted it and drank eagerly, hoping that the wine would calm her.</p><p>He chuckled, sipping his own cup slowly. “Nervous?”</p><p>“Yes,” Betha confessed, a flush creeping over her neck. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” he replied. “I’m nervous too.”</p><p>He was embarrassed to say so. He was a man; he wasn’t supposed to behave like a scared little maid. But he was. And he knew she would not think less of him for it. He watched his reflection ripple in the scarlet surface of his wine. “I imagined this moment since we met, played it out a million times in my head. Yet . . . I’m scared I’ll mess it up. Because it’s <em>you</em>. I love you and I just want it to be perfect for you.”</p><p>His words comforted her more than the wine, and Betha came closer, pressing her nose to his shoulder affectionately, and brushing her lips over the firm muscle. “It will be perfect. I know it. It’s you and me, after all.”</p><p>Aegon held her, and buried his face in her nest of soft, black curls, breathing in her scent. “And there is no rush either.”</p><p>"Right." She nodded, sinking into the feeling of him, the coarseness of his fingertips, the curve of his body, the warmth of his skin against her. “We have the entire night.”</p><p>After a time, Betha filled her cup with more wine, and chewed on a spiced truffle. She wandered into the bedroom, where, on the wall opposite the bed was an alcove. Inside the nook sat a metal pedestal, about four feet in height, topped with a trio of prostrate dragons. It was an elegant piece of artwork, but even more beautiful than the detailed dragon mounts was what their wings – fanned out behind them – cradled: a dragon’s egg. A <em>real </em>dragon’s egg. It was bigger than Betha thought it would be, twice as big as the painted rocks they had seen from the Fairmarket seller. The shell was covered in scales, but smooth to touch, like polished metal. The base was of similar colour to a pearl: white, but such that it reflected shades of blue, pink and purple. Through it swirled whorls of pale emerald, like smoke.</p><p>Aegon had shown it to her the morning she moved to Summerhall, and she’d stared at it a few times since then, amazed by its beauty, captivated by the possibility that, in some other place or some other time, it might’ve hatched. It never ceased to fascinate her.</p><p>Aegon watched her with a smile, then came to stand beside her. He placed his hand over hers, pressing their palms to its rippled surface. Betha closed her eyes. He claimed it was warm, but she felt nothing more than cool stone. Any heat she felt only came from him. Maybe only the Blood of the Dragon could feel it, radiating from within.</p><p>“It will hatch,” he said with certainty. Dragons had been extinct for nearly seventy years, and even then, the last of them were all small and stunted and couldn’t even fly. “I’m not sure how, or when, but it will. I’ll make certain of that.”</p><p>A bemused smile tugged at her lips. “And how will you manage that, I wonder?”</p><p>He mirrored her smirk and said with all seriousness, “I’ll sit on it if I have to.”</p><p>Betha laughed; Aegon was certain he’d never known a more pleasant sound. “I would love to see that. My beloved husband, seated atop a dragon’s egg like a chicken.”</p><p>They laughed, long and hard, tears flowing freely from their eyes. Yes . . . Theirs would be a blessed marriage.</p><p>“Aemon and I once tried putting them in the braziers,” he explained once their laughter passed. “Of course, nothing happened. And Father was furious, said we could have burned ourselves. Actually, he said we could have burned the whole of Summerhall to ash, but I think he was exaggerating.”</p><p>“Maybe they’re too old,” she suggested.</p><p>Aegon shook his head. “No. They’re hard; it’s true. But it takes centuries for them to fossilize. I think it’s simply that the fire wasn’t hot enough.”</p><p>Betha stared at the egg, spellbound. She watched as candlelight played off its shell, making the smoky swirls appear as though they were dancing. What burned hotter than fire?</p><p>“Dragon fire,” he replied, seeming to have read her thoughts. “And wildfire.”</p><p>A chill crossed over her flesh when he said that, but she was not quite sure why. Betha had heard of wildfire in passing – perhaps in some lesson or other – and knew nothing of it other than that it was a fearsome substance that men trembled to behold. He explained that it was a chemical, a closely guarded secret in the Alchemist’s Guild. But its emerald flames burned hotter than ordinary, orange fire, near impossible to choke once it lit. Anything could set it off, and one simply had to wait for it to burn itself out.</p><p>“Aerion believes that it’s the only thing capable of hatching the eggs now that the last of the dragons have died. I’m not so sure. Father hates wildfire, and I never mean to touch it. There have to be other ways.”</p><p>Betha craned her neck and turned, coiling her arms around his neck. “I’ve no doubt you’ll figure it out. But even if not . . . The eggs’re still beautiful.”</p><p>“Mm. Although, not quite as beautiful as my new wife.” Betha frowned, but her pale face was bright red. Aegon held her eyes with his own. “Don’t frown. I’m serious. Does it embarrass you, hearing me say that?”</p><p>“A bit . . . “ she confessed.</p><p>“It shouldn’t.” Delicately, faint as butterfly wings, he kissed her, lightly brushing his lips over cheeks, forehead, nose and ears, following the outer shell and nipping at her lobes, before settling firmly on her mouth.</p><p>They’d kissed many times before, stealing every opportunity they could. Lord Blackwood was cautious though - and Betha suspected that he never truly trusted Aegon; he'd not be the first man to claim love simply to bed someone - and Betha seldom found herself without an escort. Septa Clodagh was the worst, following her like a barnacle stuck to a ship. So their kisses were oft only brief caresses of lips on lips, or cheeks or hands. Sometimes though, they would find some time alone, and ravaged each other’s mouths until they were breathless.</p><p>Abandoning their cups on the nearest surface, he removed the fragile silver combs from her hair, one by one, running his fingers over her scalp. She liked the feeling of hands tangled in the wild curls, massaging her sensitive skin, and he smiled inwardly when a purr rumbled in the back of her throat.</p><p>She twisted an arm around her back, expertly loosening the strings that held her bodice closed, easing out the tight knots her handmaidens tied. She slipped her torso free, pushed the fitted silks over the curve of her hips, curling her thumbs beneath the thin fabric of her smallclothes, and let them fall onto the floor.</p><p>He paused and beheld her. Her breasts were a bit small and more conical in shape, but firm, her nipples perfectly round and brownish pink. Her belly was noticeably soft in the center and pale stretch marks marred her hips. He’d seen naked women before, commonfolk and skinny whores, but for all their perfectly shaped breasts and flawless skin, none were as beautiful as her, and the heat simmering between his legs burned hotter.</p><p>But he made no move to work loose his laces; instead, he waited for her to proceed when she was ready, simply content to be with her, see her, the way no one else ever had.</p><p>Reading his thoughts, Betha’s lips trembled and her eyes filled with hot tears. Anyone else might’ve forced her to continue in order to fulfill his own pleasure. But not Aegon. She kissed him long and hard as she wept. “I love you,” he whispered against her mouth and held her tightly against him. </p><p>Betha parted her lips. Aegon explored her mouth, his tongue twisting around hers, the pleasing sensation causing her to moan softly. She took a small step back, leading him to bed.</p><p>She felt his breath hitch when she pulled swiftly on the laces of his tight breeches, slipped her hand inside, and started stroking him slowly. His head spun and he flexed his hips, pressing himself into her. If she kept touching him like this, he was not sure how long he’d last. “Wait . . .”</p><p>She stopped, but only to help him from his boots and breeches so that he stood before her, naked as his nameday.  She thought she would be embarrassed, that she would close her eyes in shame. But instead, she took him in head-to-toe, admiring his tapered torso, his muscles honed through rigorous training with arms and armour. Her heart raced with excitement, following the path of fine silver hairs that trailed from his navel to his half-hardened manhood.</p><p>She climbed into bed, lowering herself onto the feather mattress, and pulled him so that he knelt over her. </p><p>“It takes more to please women,” he remembered Duncan saying a few nights passed when Aegon had asked him for some advice, “than to please men. Much more. You’re like to finish sooner, but it’s better to experience release together. So take it slow.”</p><p>Aegon worked his way lower, over each of her ribs, her hips, the bones of her pelvis pushing against her skin, her thighs, the muscled outsides and softer insides. Beneath the coarse hair, her maidenhood beckoned, pink and swollen and shiny with arousal. He kissed her softly, tentatively, and Betha cried out in response. Hers wasn’t a cry of pain, but of simple surprise, for she had not expected him to kiss her <em>there</em>. Aegon explored every inch of her the same way he had her mouth, conscious of how she responded to each loving stroke.</p><p>She sighed heavily. He might’ve been wrong before: her laughter was maybe the <em>second</em> most pleasant sound in the world. Her pleasured sighs were perhaps the best.  </p><p>Her back arched as pressure mounted sharply. She tightened her thighs around his shoulders, a cry of ecstasy erupting from her throat, and fell back into the pillows, struggling to catch her breath. Her neck and face were flushed red, her eyes heavily-lidded when he kissed her one last time and rejoined her higher on the bed. He pressed his lips to each of her breasts, circling her nipples with his tongue and sucking until they were beautifully pink and swollen.</p><p>Finally, he positioned himself outside her warmth, but hesitated before entering her. He let her take the lead once more. When she was ready, trembling with expectation, she held him firmly, pulled him in. “Egg . . . Please.”</p><p>He pressed himself into her slowly, stopping every time she moaned or whimpered and writhed beneath him, making sure he wasn’t causing her pain. The feeling of being inside her, of their bodies fitting so perfectly together, was more than he’d imagined. “Are you . . .?”</p><p>“It’s okay,” she breathed. “I’m okay.”</p><p>He moved slowly, giving her a chance to adjust to his presence, and Betha parted her lips, exhaling silently, as he thrust back into her.  Gods she was so tight. It made his head spin, as blissfully as though he was drunk on the sweetest wine. But he was conscious of her needs, and made certain not to lose control entirely, not to try anything before she was ready.</p><p>She held his hips, pressing her fingertips into his skin, and angled herself beneath him into a position that was comfortable, coaxing him onwards, faster, harder. She rocked her hips, meeting each thrust with increasing urgency.</p><p>She thought, perhaps, that it wasn’t proper to cry or moan – that highborn ladies weren’t supposed to make noise like whores – but she’d long stopped caring. She hadn’t imagined how much she’d love the feeling of him inside her, of moving with him, their bodies one. She threaded both hands into his silver hair, pressed her fevered forehead to his, their breathless panting mixing together. Her brow pinched and he felt her pulse racing as she fell into her release, her legs spasming. “Gods . . . “ </p><p>His stomach muscles tightened and he knew that he was close to his own release. Clutching the headboard so hard his knuckles went white, he spilled his seed with a long, shuddering cry, and fell into her warm embrace. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in the intoxicating scent of her, of fragrant oils and sex and sweat.</p><p>Betha languidly traced his spine. There was a bit of blood on the bedsheets – and on him – from when he’d taken her maidenhead, but not as much as she’d thought; certainly not as much as when her moon’s blood came. And her mother had been right; it wasn’t as painful as she’d thought either. Uncomfortable was probably the word she would have picked, and even then, it lasted only a few moments before it was replaced with a better feeling than she’d ever known.</p><p>After her pulse slowed and the pleasant sensation of their love-making started to fade, she said, “That was . . .”</p><p>Aegon arched a brow. “That was what?”</p><p>“Awful.”</p><p>His heart tightened, his worst fears realized – that he’d messed up and ruined this for her. But then her lips curled into a satisfied smile, and he laughed and pulled her to him in a fierce hug. He found the sensitive spot in the curve of her hips and tickled her, made her kick and squeal and writhe against him, laughing all the while. “Oh really?”</p><p>“Absolutely atrocious,” she stated matter-of-factly, prying herself free. “I’m not certain that you can consider a marriage official after that.”</p><p>He propped himself up on one elbow. “Hm. That won’t do, will it? Perhaps we should try again?”</p><p>“I can’t see that we have any choice.” Giggling, she wiggled her hips, worked free the bedsheets from beneath them, and covered them both. She followed the curve of his cheekbone with her nail, feeling the coarseness of fresh stubble beneath her finger. “Once more to be sure. Twice if need be.”</p><p>He bent his neck to brush his lips over hers lightly and moved back between her legs, wrapping them around his waist. “As my lady wishes.”</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>If it was even possible, their second time together was better than the first, though they were both exhausted, reeling in the lingerings of their own pleasure. Aegon collapsed beside her, chest heaving, his limbs like seaweed. She held her finger in her mouth; she’d bitten on it like a bridle, certain she would scream so loud she’d wake the whole castle otherwise.</p><p>Betha rolled her neck to one side to face him, lacing their fingers together. He met her inquiring stare and then broke into a grin. Then they laughed riotously. Neither could say precisely why. It wasn’t as satisfying as making love, but it felt nice, knowing that they could enjoy such a simple thing as laughing together.</p><p>After their laughter subsided, Aegon held her close. “So . . . What would you like most to see?”</p><p>She shifted slightly, and cushioned her cheek on his chest, twining her legs with his. “I’m not sure I know what you mean?”</p><p>“Once, you said that you’d never seen the world,” he replied, caressing her shoulders softly, “that you had never even left the riverlands. So I thought , now that we are married. . . Let’s see the world. All of it. Together, you and I. We can head south to Dorne, to Lemonwood and Sunspear. Or we can see Highgarden and Oldtown out West. We can visit Maidenpool. You can bathe in Jonquil’s Pool; they say that it’s magic. And Harrenhal is not far from there. We can see where Balerion burned the Five Towers and ended Harren’s line forever. Or we can sail across the Narrow Sea, to Braavos and Lys, spend some time in the Free Cities or Old Ghis or the Summer Isles.”</p><p>She craned her neck to look up at him. The candles had burned low, but moonlight spilled in the window and Betha’s brown eyes shimmered.  “You mean that?” Her voice was so soft, afraid that this was a dream; he was not truly offering to bring her with him, to travel the world.</p><p>“I’ve spent half my life traveling Westeros,” he said. “The things I’ve seen . . . I know you’d love them too. And I . . .”</p><p>“I know.” She tucked a loose strand behind his ear, pressed her palm to his cheek. “I love you.”</p><p>“And I love you,” Aegon said, closing his eyes, savouring her touch. He never wanted this to end. “Stay with me tonight. Every night. Don’t ever leave me.”</p><p>Highborn ladies and lords tended to keep their own rooms, sharing each other’s beds only to couple, rarely simply to sleep. They wouldn’t be like that though, she thought. She would entertain herself, her favourites and friends, in her own rooms, to be sure. But each night, this is where she would be, beside him, his strong arms around her. “I will,” Betha promised. “From this night on, I’ll never leave you, as long as I live.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Before Ser Arlan took Duncan into his services, he’d picked on smaller children, offered potshops meat of suspect origin, smashed the ceramic pots outside said potshops where bowls o’ brown were served, stolen and done almost anything a “good man” would considered reprehensible – he’d never raped (if only because he was far too young) and he’d only ever killed those who assaulted him first.</p><p>Looking back, though, he knew that the only reason he was like that was because he’d known nothing else. He’d no parents; no one to teach him right from wrong. And besides, Flea Bottom was a cruel place. Few could survive it without a bit of cruelty of their own.</p><p>That changed once the old man took him in.  Since then, Duncan never harmed those who did not deserve it (and even then, he never <em>enjoyed</em> it). He never made promises he knew he wouldn’t keep nor broke the ones that he made. He watched his tongue (as best he could) and never, <em>never</em>, took what, by rights, wasn’t his. If he hadn’t the coin, he simply went without.</p><p>As such, he only ever had one regret in life: he regretted the Trial of Seven that cost Prince Baelor Targaryen and the Humfreys their lives. Looking back, he wished he’d let Aerion break his hand and foot.</p><p>And, he suspected, he would come to regret tonight too – for more reasons than one.</p><p>The first was that they were seen, stumbling blindly through the Great Keep towards Duncan’s private rooms. Most of the high lords had retired following the bedding ceremony, turning in to either rooms in the Guest Wing or tents outside the castle’s walls. Those who remained were in the Great Hall, in no rush to end the celebration. Gerold Lannister, Rohanne insisted, was one such reveler.</p><p>“Trust me,” she said with no small bit of contempt, “should he somehow stumble to bed, he’ll never even realize that I’m not there.”</p><p>Duncan knew the patrols and routes inside-out, so it was easy enough to cross the Keep without being noticed. Sconces on the walls created long shadows on the floors and Rohanne stopped within each one to capture his mouth with her own. A hand moved over his chest, following the embroidered scrollwork of his silk tunic, and settled between his legs. She stroked him slowly through his breeches, felt him stiffen beneath her touch. He held her face in his hands, tracing the lines of her neck with his thumbs.</p><p>“Gods . . . “ he slurred and ground himself against her palm. How many times had he imagined what it would feel like to touch her? To be touched by her?</p><p>The hall was lined with columns, thick as the trunks of pale weirwoods, every fifty feet or so. Half-hidden behind the nearest one was Princess Rhae, who would confess later to having left her room in search of the former hedge knight, with whom she was so taken.</p><p>She was happy that Aegon and Betha had wed, she would say. Yet, after crawling into her own bed later that night, she was filled with a crushing melancholy. And knowing that, a few rooms away, her beloved brother and new sister were making love only made things worse. At first, she’d intended to speak with Daella. Perhaps she was feeling similarly miserable. Then they could lament together and sleep together so that they would forget that they had no husbands to share their beds. But then it occurred to her that even if Daella was sad, she might not have settled for her misery. There were enough handsome men in the castle – knights, lesser lords, or perhaps a page or squire – that would be more than happy to lay with a princess. And Daella was no shy maiden, not like Rhae.</p><p>That was when she’d thought of Duncan, recalling what it was like to sit with him, hold him. Had she been bolder, she’d have kissed him. Or perhaps she wouldn’t have. She wasn’t sure that it was what he’d needed then, and she’d wanted only to comfort him.</p><p>She convinced herself to find him, wherever he was, and finally tell him the truth – that she was well and truly in love with him. She knew that Father would betroth her to a Great House, that he was simply waiting for someone suitable. But even if she could not have him for her husband, she would more than happily make Duncan her lover if only it meant that they could be together.</p><p>Of course there was a chance he might refuse her. She was, after all, his best friend’s sister, and a princess besides. But that was a chance she would have to take. Trembling with excitement, she slipped from her room, her slippers making no noise on the floor.</p><p>She heard the muted scuffle of stumbling footsteps, the crash of bodies hitting the walls. Assuming it was Aerion, or Daeron with a lover, or perhaps even her lord father – who would certainly demand to know where she was headed – she stepped behind the column to wait.</p><p>“But it wasn’t Aerion or even my father,” she’d later say, choking on her tears. “It was you.”</p><p>And Duncan, knowing where her story was heading, would close his eyes in shame. “I . . . I’m so sorry,” he’d say, cradling her hands in his. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”</p><p>But regret was for later. For now, his only thoughts were of Rohanne.</p><p>She shouldered open the door to his rooms and pulled him inside, barring it behind them. She leaned on the frame, hands behind her back. Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight that came in the window, her lips pulled back from her teeth. He’d never seen her so . . . happy. He knew that this was wrong. He’d never served Gerold Lannister the way he’d served Eustace Osgrey, but she was his wife ever still. And he was besmirching her honour besides his own. But he loved her. How could he refuse her, knowing that he might bring her some happiness, when she so often knew none?</p><p>She was shorter than him; so much so that he was forced to bend near in half to find her lips, but the cramp in his back was worth it. Her teeth tugged on his lip, her tongue twisting around his. She reached between his legs to loosen the laces of his breeches, heard him exhale heavily from the ease of pressure, and pulled him out.</p><p>“I was right,” she murmured with a chuckle, continuing to caress his entire length, “about you.”</p><p>He wrapped her waist with both hands and lifted her like she weighed nothing. He pressed his nose to her neck, breathing in her perfumed scent, and brushed his lips over her pulse points. The few loose curls framing her face tickled his nose, smelled of rosemary and lemon. “Now let’s see if I’m right about you.”</p><p>“About?”</p><p>“Being freckled all over.”</p><p>Giggling, Rohanne collected her skirts over her thighs, and wrapped her legs round his waist. Her thighs <em>were</em> freckled – such beautiful, beautiful little brown spots. He would have to kiss them tonight, but not now. Now he wanted only to be inside her, the way he’d longed to be since the moment they’d first met.</p><p>But he paused, the tip of his manhood caressing her warmth, hesitant to continue. Her brow furrowed and she flexed her hips impatiently. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>Duncan held her eyes with his own. “Are you certain . . . ?” Once they crossed that line, there was no turning back.</p><p>She smiled sweetly, brushing his hair from his face. “I’ve never been more certain in my life.” She spread her legs further, leading him into her slowly, savouring the feeling of him. He was bigger than every one of her husbands; stronger too, and she bit his shoulder, smothering a moan. Bracing himself on the wall, leaning on both forearms to keep steady, he pressed himself fully into her, feeling her shudder as she enveloped him to his base.</p><p>Balanced between him and the wall, she clutched his shoulders firmly, pulled her hips back slightly, and thrust against him, riding him slowly, but purposely. He responded in kind, rocking his hips, meeting every one of her thrusts with his own. She closed her eyes, sinking into the feeling of him, of <em>them</em>, their bodies moving together in perfect synchronicity. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she whispered, breathlessly. She rocked her hips faster, harder, feeling pressure building. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>He wrapped a strong arm around her waist and slammed into her over and over, reaching a pace that tore heavy moans from her throat. “For what?”</p><p>“For . . .” Her brow furrowed with concentration, her lower muscles tensing. “For not choosing you. I should’ve . . . chosen you.”</p><p>He continued thrusting into her steadily, but found her lips and kissed her passionately, sliding his tongue into her mouth in response to her confession. He could find no other words – there were no other words.</p><p>Finally, she fell into her release with a silent cry, pressing her nails into the elegant fabric of his shirt. He rode her orgasm out with her, nearing his limit with a few more hard thrusts. He pulled back, intending to finish on himself. It would benefit no one if she suddenly found herself pregnant.</p><p>“No!” She squeezed her thighs together. “Don’t Duncan. I want – I want you . . . Inside . . . Please,” she breathed. “It’s okay.”</p><p>The potion she had put in her wine earlier. It was a contraceptive of some kind, he realized. She must’ve suspected that he’d not refuse her, so she’d taken steps to ensure that he’d not put a child in her tonight.</p><p>He pressed his fevered brow to hers, slid back into her, once, twice, and fell into his own pleasure with a soft, shuddering sigh, his hot seed filling her womb. Afterwards, he lowered her onto the floor, his knees shaking from the exertion.</p><p>“Get into bed.” She held him, leaning on the wall for support. He nodded slowly, too drunk on her to argue even if he wanted.</p><p>His private rooms were comprised of the bedroom and a kind of pseudo-solar – nowhere near the size or splendour of the Prince’s, though impressive nevertheless, with bookshelves lining the walls (not that he was a proficient reader), a circular table and chairs in the center covered in bowls of hard, salted cheeses, fruits and sweets, and a flagon of water, and a hearth on one wall. He was a simple man, never prone to hording or trimming. Besides three shields that hung on the wall over the hearth – the first one he’d taken from Ser Arlan, the one Tanselle had painted for him in Ashford Meadow, was hacked to pieces in the Chequy Water, but he’d kept three more since then –  the walls lacked ornamentation. He hung his sword on two bars over the bed, easily within reach should he need it. Otherwise, the only things he owned were a bust for his plate, a dressing table with a large mirror where he shaved every morning, a side table where he kept a candle and a book on the lineages of the Great Houses written by Grand Maester Maelleon (a boring read that more oft than not put him to sleep, though Egg insisted he know who was who), and a large trunk for his clothes.</p><p>In the center of the bedroom, Rohanne stopped to help him from his boots, tunic and breeches, taking the time to slowly thumb open the enameled gold snaps and ties. She turned, collecting her loose hair over one shoulder, so he could loosen the ties that ran the length of her spine. She stepped from the rich, scarlet skirts, kicking them off to one side with her pearl-encrusted slippers. Even her back, breasts and stomach were freckled, he saw, though they thinned out over her torso.</p><p>Gods she was beautiful, he thought and scooped her up, an arm beneath her knees, the other round her shoulders, and carried her into bed. He climbed in beside her, not ready to make love a second time, but simply content to lie next to her. He tucked a hand beneath his ear like a pillow and brushed a copper strand behind her ear.  </p><p>“Tell me true . . .” Rohanne said when neither of them had spoken for some time. “If I had not married Ser Eustace, would you have stayed at Coldmoat?”</p><p>“If I said yes . . . ” Duncan replied, following the line of her jaw and neck, sending shivers over her skin, “would that make things better or worse?”</p><p>“You’re right.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Don’t tell me. Neither option would make me happy.” She shuffled closer, sliding her leg between his. “I meant what I said before: I’m sorry.”</p><p>“You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”</p><p>She shook her head. “No . . . Duncan, stop that.”</p><p>He held her hand, kissed each of her fingertips lightly. Once, they were calloused from her bow. But she had not shot since moving to Casterly Rock, so they had softened over time. “Stop what?”</p><p>“Being you.”</p><p>He said nothing, only exhaled heavily and wet his lips in annoyance. What could he say? Who else was he supposed to be?</p><p>“You’re a good man – always were.”</p><p>He snorted. “I’m in bed with another man’s wife. I’m not that good.”</p><p>She cupped his face in her hands, her thumb tracing his scarred cheek. “Do you remember the first time you came to Coldmoat?”</p><p>Of course; he’d never forget it. It was in the middle of summer. Duncan had never been so hot – not even in Dorne. He’d ridden two hours to speak to the infamous Red Widow over the empty streambed that ran through Standfast, thinking she was selfishly taking Ser Eustace’s water for herself. The heat never seemed to bother Egg, but Duncan had sweat through his tunic in mere minutes, negating the bath he’d taken the evening prior so he’d not smell like old cheese when he met her.</p><p>“Longinch chased off my suitors,” Rohanne said as if he’d forgotten. “He knew that Father’s will would expire on the next turn of the moon. Thought he would force himself on me, to be my husband, if I’d not selected someone by then. And he might’ve succeeded. But then you showed up.”</p><p>Duncan smirked. “He was offended on site – you claimed that it was because I was taller than him, the only person he’d met that he couldn’t look down on.”</p><p>“In part.” She stroked his cheek rhythmically. “But I think he knew, or suspected, that if we met, somehow I would choose you. He was never particularly comely. In fact, he was rather repulsive. You were young and handsome and strong. That’s why he presented Helicent to you and claimed she was me – to make you look the fool.”</p><p>“He must have mistaken me for someone else then. You could have never married someone like me, even if you had not thought me thick.”</p><p>“Not to keep my seat, no. Though I might’ve taken you as my lover, which is something that I never offered him,” she explained. “My point is that he humiliated you. And everyone played into it. Even me, in my own way.” After ending the ruse, she had teased him, mocking his lame attempts at flattery. He’d never been strong with words, and everyone had had a chuckle at his expense. “You had the right to be mad. You could have hit Longinch, or cursed me. Or . . . something. Yet, you accepted it.”</p><p>He was big, illiterate and poor back then; a bastard and a hedge knight. “I was accustomed to being mocked. And I wasn’t there to cause trouble. I only wanted water.”</p><p>“And that’s what I mean. You continued serving a man you despised – a man who betrayed you – because you had sworn your sword to him. You accepted humiliation and lies, and almost died, and still you could never betray his trust in return. I offered myself to you. I knew that you cared for me. And I cared for you; I wanted you. And still you chose honour.”</p><p>“Had I not . . . Had I had you in the stables that morning,” he said slowly, “would you care for me still?”</p><p>She swallowed, her throat suddenly thick. “I . . . I’m not sure.”</p><p>“I think you are.” He turned into her touch, brushing his lips over her palm.</p><p>“I love you, Duncan.” He rolled back slightly, and Rohanne swung her leg over his hip, straddling him. “If you love me, then fulfill this one request: Forget honour for once. Forget oaths and being a proper knight. Take what you want – what you are owed.”</p><p>“What I’m owed . . . ?” <em>And what is that?</em> he wondered, but she slid her hips forward, stroking him with her warmth and his thoughts abandoned him again, a groan escaping him. “I want . . . you,” he breathed. Perhaps it was the wine – or perhaps he was simply tired, tired of remembering his courtesies, his “lords” and “sers” and “Your Grace”s, of taking the condescending stares and mocking and sniggers, trying and failing to be perfect. And of watching his tongue.</p><p>Before he could think of something less obscene, less shocking to a highborn lady, he pressed his fingers into her hips, lifting her enough to ease himself inside her. “What I want . . . ” he murmured, “is to fuck you all night.”</p><p>Rohanne closed her eyes, squeezing him tightly. She still remembered the time he’d said the word “pissing” to her. Initially it shocked her, to be spoken to like some boon companion or common barmaid; but then it occurred to her that he was comfortable enough with her to be himself, to forgo formality. And it pleased her. “Is that how one speaks to a lady?”</p><p>She shifted slightly so that she was comfortable, leaned over, brushing her lips over his. He moved his hands over her thighs, the curve of her hips, her waist, and cupped her lovely, soft breasts, teasing her pink nipples with his thumbs. Her nipples were extra sensitive since the birth of her twins and she let out a small cry of surprise when his teasing caused her milk to leak out. Flushing red with embarrassment, she started to wipe it with her wrist, but Duncan stopped her.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he said softly and craned his neck to kiss each of her breasts in turn, cleaning the sweet, thin milk with his tongue. It tasted a bit like honeyed milk, he thought.</p><p>When he was finished, she told him to lie back. She straightened her back, lifted herself off him momentarily before driving back down hard. They cried out in unison as he filled her suddenly, and she threaded their fingers together, lifting them above his head as she repeated the motion slowly. He held her eyes steadily, watching moonlight play in the emerald pools. He matched her increasing tempo, listening to her moans and sighs as she came nearer to release. He reached between her legs, finding the sensitive spot near where he’d entered her. He massaged her with two fingers, pressing slightly, increasing pressure and moving faster in response to the way her lips parted and her brow furrowed. With a final thrust she shuddered, pleasure swelling through her, making her knees twitch and her muscles contract hard for several long moments. She leaned on him, struggling to catch her breath, but noticed that he remained hard inside her. She kissed him, tightening her thighs in silent request to continue.</p><p>He rolled her over so that now she lay on her back. He raised her legs to his shoulders, so that when he thrust back into her, he reached even farther into her, making her moan harder. He rocked his hips with increasing intensity, feeling the familiar heat building in the base of his belly and spine. Biting her lip, Rohanne clutched his backside, her nails pressing into the hard skin – a queer, but not terrible, combination of pain and pleasure shooting through his flanks – and coaxed him on, her murmurings letting him know when he’d reached the pacing she liked most. He marveled at the fact that women could find release over and over without much need of rest, and watched as she crested the wave of another climax, throwing her head back, her pale skin shining with beads of sweat. His orgasm came a few moments later, and his head swam as he sank into it, letting her pull him into her warm embrace.</p><p>“I love you,” he whispered as his pulse slowed, and held her tightly, wishing that they could stay like this forever. He knew they couldn’t; once the night was over, she would return to her husband, to Casterly Rock and her sons. Perhaps they would cross paths in time, but when? A month from now? Six months? Five years?</p><p>She tugged on the leather thong tying back his hair, running her long fingers through his loose sandy tresses. Her touch was calming, and he struggled not to close his eyes, not to waste what precious little time they had together. But even he was not strong enough and in moments, he was asleep, wrapped in Rohanne’s arms.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>He must not have slept for long; the sky was black when he woke. Rohanne wasn’t beneath him, and he shot up, fearful that she’d snuck off without word. But she was in the other room, standing near the window and nursing a cup of water. She was completely naked, the curve of her hips and shoulders highlighted in moonlight. She had let her hair loose, and played with a copper strand absently. “Did I wake you?”</p><p>“No, not really.” Duncan came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and brushed his lips lightly over her neck and shoulder. “Is something wrong?”</p><p>She relaxed against him, loving the feeling of his naked skin against her own. “Nothing’s wrong. I mean, other than . . .”</p><p>“I know.” Other than the fact that their time together was running out, slowly, steadily like sand through an hourglass.</p><p>“Maybe this was a mistake,” Rohanne said, and Duncan froze, his muscles tensing. “I’m sorry – that’s not what I meant.” She rubbed his forearms vigorously. “I simply meant that I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve never loved someone like this – not since Addam. And even then, that was a child’s love. I just . . . I’m not sure how I can return to Casterly Rock, pretend that none of this ever happened.”</p><p>He remained silent, having thought much the same thing.</p><p>“Come with me,” she suggested, and spun to face him.</p><p>Duncan frowned. “To Casterly Rock?”</p><p>She shook her head, trembling with excitement. “We can leave Summerhall tonight while everyone is sleeping. Head to King’s Landing, or Storm’s End. Hire a ship and sail to Essos. We can change our names; no one will ever know. I’ll sell my stones to pay our way. We can hire ourselves out to companies there, or find some other work – building or trading. We won’t need too much.”</p><p>“Rohanne . . .”</p><p>“Please Duncan.” She buried her face in his chest. “I can’t lose you again.”</p><p>He held her tightly, wishing that they could leave. But even if he was not sworn to House Targaryen, Gerold Lannister wouldn’t let them escape. Once he learned she had left, he’d send word and every lord and landed knight would be searching for them. If they managed to cross the Narrow Sea, Lannister’s rage would follow. He’d likely offer Duncan’s weight in gold to whoever found her. They would have targets on their backs for the rest of their lives. “What of Tion and Tywald?” he replied instead. “Your boys need their mother.”</p><p>“My boys . . . ? Yes.”</p><p>He knelt enough to catch her eyes with his own and cradled her face in his hands. “I love you. Always have. And I wish – more than you could ever know – I wish that we could be together. But we can’t. Your children need you, and you need your children. For as much as you love me, I know you love them ten times fiercer.</p><p>“I’ve my life too, my responsibilities. And I can’t forsake them . . . even for you.”</p><p>Rohanne wept when he led her back to bed, clinging to him when he made love to her for the third time, clutching him, pressing him into to her like he might slip from her fingers like water. There was a fierceness to his movements this time. He offered her no tender kisses on her lips or neck or shoulders. No soft strokes. There was no slow mounting of pressure. Only hard, rough thrusts. His shallow breaths and moans of pleasure trembled with fear of the coming morn. She tightened her legs, pulling him in closer. Deeper.  The muscles of her belly flexed, her hips and knees spasming when he came inside her.</p><p>Rohanne finally found herself sinking into sleep, lulled by Duncan’s beating heart, his strong arms around her. If she could have one wish, she thought, closing her eyes, she would reverse time, return to that blisteringly hot summer. And on that fateful morning, when he knelt before her in the Great Hall, she would not strike him. Instead, she would wrap him in her small, willowy arms and kiss him over and over. She would share that bloody stream with Eustace – seven hells, she would hand him Coldmoat herself, its lands and titles and wealth. And she would travel with Duncan instead. North. South. Wherever he pleased. And she would bear his children. Tion and Tywald would be <em>his </em>sons. And they would be happy.</p><p>So terribly happy . . .  </p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>“No?”</p><p>In the Great Hall, King Aerys I Targaryen was seated upon Maekar’s throne. Bloodraven stood by his side, both hands clasped neatly behind his back. Duncan knelt on the hard stone floor near the foot of the dais, head low.</p><p>“Let me see if I’m hearing this,” Bloodraven cooed. “You are refusing the King’s offer, ser?”</p><p>The Hall was silent. The high lords and ladies left Summerhall two mornings prior and Aerys was set to return to King’s Landing on the morrow, which left Maekar’s children to watch from the arcade as Duncan knelt before the King and Hand and refused to trade his sunset cloak of one of snowy white.</p><p>“Forgive me, Your Grace,” he said firmly. “I’m honoured, humbled, by your faith in me. Every knight longs to serve the King, to be one of the chosen Seven. I longed for it too. But Lord Rivers said so himself; you believe in me because I’m a true knight. When I swear my sword, I keep my word. And I swore myself to Aegon – <em>Prince</em> Aegon, I mean – Prince Maekar and their household.  I seek no relief from my oath and I mean to serve them ever faithfully for the remainder of my life.”</p><p>The King steeped his long fingers together, falling into silence. Bloodraven tilted his pointed chin slightly, his silver hair sliding back from his missing eye. He wasn’t wearing a patch today, and the thick scar tissue was as red and angry as the mark on his cheek. He smiled an almost kind smile. “See, Your Grace? I told you he’d refuse.”</p><p>Aerys nodded slowly. “Indeed. Well, I cannot claim that I’m not disappointed. You are brave, loyal and as strong a man as ever was. But I respect your decision. You’d have served me well, I should think. May you continue serving my only remaining brother so well.”</p><p>After Aerys and his royal entourage left Summerhall for King’s Landing, Duncan went with Aegon into the ward, where a dozen men-at-arms were loading wagons and saddling horses to accompany Aegon and Betha north to Winterfell.</p><p>“You actually refused,” Aegon said with an amazed shake of his head. “I thought you always wanted a White Cloak?”</p><p>Duncan shrugged. “Once, perhaps. But I couldn’t imagine serving in King’s Landing. I much prefer being here, where I know people.” <em>Besides</em>, he thought, remembering Rohanne and the night they spent together, <em>I’m no longer worthy of such an honour</em>.</p><p>They were woken by sparrow song the following morning. Dawn lingered on the horizon, painting the sky soft orange. Rohanne started to weep again and Duncan kissed her sweetly, told her to be strong, but felt his own heart shattering. They made love once more, slowly, their hands and mouths constantly moving. He kissed every inch of her, memorizing her smell, her taste, everything . . .</p><p>Finally, she collected her clothes off the floor, stepped back into her skirts, and she was Lady Lannister once more. She bid him farewell, slipped from his room like smoke and, somehow, Duncan knew, with a cold kind of certainty, that that would be the last time he ever saw her.</p><p>The bang of a trunk being thrown into the back of the wagons brought Duncan back from his thoughts.</p><p>“And Daemon’s vision?” Aegon asked. “You said that he saw you as Kingsguard.”</p><p>“That’s what he said. But he thought his rebellion would succeed too – and that the egg would hatch. He was wrong.” Daeron’s vision came to pass, that’s true. And Bloodraven said that some Targaryens had the power of sight, the way Daenys the Dreamer had. But how many of their “visions” were naught but dreams?</p><p>Aegon and Betha bid farewell to Aemon, Daeron, Daella and Rhae (who, Duncan noticed, had been behaving rather coldly towards him since the wedding. When he sat to break his fast the following morning, he saw that her eyes were red, swollen from tears, half-hidden behind her hair. When he said “Good morning”, she mumbled something in return, then rose swiftly and nearly ran from the Hall. Since then, she’d taken pains to avoid him, and he wondered if, somehow, he’d offended her) and, begrudgingly, Aerion as well. At last, Aegon kissed his father’s pockmarked cheeks lightly, and mounted Rain, while Betha was helped onto her own mare.</p><p>“Sure you’d rather stay? You’re always welcome.”</p><p>“I’m sure. I’ve seen much of Westeros,” Duncan replied. “I think it’s time I settled. Besides . . . “ He winked knowingly. “You ought to enjoy some time alone with your new wife.”</p><p>Aegon clasped Duncan’s hand tightly, leaned over and closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to his friend’s lovingly. “Be well. And behave yourself.”</p><p>Duncan laughed. “I meant to say the same thing to you.”</p><p>“Have I ever not?” Aegon smirked.</p><p>“Take care of him,” Duncan said to Betha.</p><p>“Of course,” she said, regarding her husband with an affectionate stare.</p><p>Aegon clicked his heels, leading Rain into step with Betha’s mare, and they cantered to the head of the column. Duncan watched him leave, an obvious ache in his chest. He’d only half-lied. They needed time together, he knew, but Duncan could have traveled with them while offering them privacy. The fact was simply that things were changing.</p><p>Egg had been his constant companion since Ashford Meadow. Since then, they’d never spent more than a few nights apart. Even though he was a Dragon Prince, Egg had needed him then. But he was a man now, a husband – and soon, if the gods were feeling generous, a father as well. He no longer needed Duncan. Nymeria was wed and Rohanne was soon to return to Casterly Rock. He’d no children, no wife. And now Egg had left him too. Suddenly, the former hedge knight felt lost, carried off in a current he could not swim.</p><p>Duncan turned from the ward, heading inside. He would have to find some other purpose, some other reason for living now. Somehow, he knew something would come up. If nothing else, he had a habit for stumbling into things.</p><p><em>Dunk the lunk</em>, he thought with a smile, <em>putting his foot in it.</em></p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A Knight So True will continue with "Blood of the Dragon".</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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